Dear Kroger

Dear Kroger,

We've shopped at your store for years now, having spent $1000s there.

The other night, after the boys went to bed, I went to your store to do the weekly shopping. (What takes me about an hour would otherwise take about 3 hours in total if small men came along).

I got to the store about 10:20 pm.

I had one item to return, some Kroger-brand trash bags (apparently, according to Mom-E, they fall apart if you look at them).

I went to the Customer Service counter, where I was greeted by an employee standing at the register picking her lip.

She promptly informed me that there are "No returns after 10pm."

Uh...what?

"Then what are you doing standing at the Customer Service counter?" I thought to myself.

Nevermind the 5 employees standing around by the registers doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

(Oh, wait. Apparently they were celebrating the end of returns for the day.)

"Please, m'am. Can you save me another trip to the store and just exchange these $1 bags for me?"

"No."

"Thanks so much for defeating the point of going to the store at night. I'm so glad your heart is full of joy this holiday season. @#$%^&!"

(I don't think I said that (or anything). I'm pretty sure I threw the bags back in my cart in disgust and stompted off.)

I thought about playing the "do you know how long it will take my wife to come exchange these in the morning with 3 small boys?" card, but I'd pretty much already played my hand with the little temper tantrum.

So I proceeded to do the shopping all the while skulking at employees who were still just standing around.

"C'mon, I'll restock the bags FOR YOU. In the time you wasted explaining to me why you couldn't return the bags, you could've returned them."

And so, when I checked out, I played one final card: I asked the cashier if she could return the bags for me.

She was kind enough to go ASK the managers (yes, managers PLURAL), who were summoned from their Bat Cave.

After a pow-wow (long enough that we could've just returned the bags), they of course said "no."

Thanks. You did an excellent job making your customers feel valued.

I hope Santa brings you a lump of coal.

Sincerely,
Busy-Dad-E

P.S. Because sometimes things seem like they can never be easy, it's fitting that one of the eggs I brought home was broken. So, we have to go back to Kroger anyway.

Yay.

Not.