Gypped

Ya wanna hear a funny story? Here’s one:

After going to IF to spend the $150 in Target gift cards people so kindly gave us, we excitedly brought our loot home. I was in the bedroom unpacking some box or another, and Mike started in on the Target bags in the living room. We had bought a Clear2O – the much-more-reasonably-priced equivalent of the Brita Water Pitcher. He opened the product’s box and called out, “What the? Malie!” I came to the living room, and asked what it was. He held up a wrapped wedding gift. “So?” I said, thinking it was one of ours. He held up the Clear2O box and showed me the insides. It was full of crumpled newspaper and, until a moment before, the wrapped gift which looked very much like a book.

I was like, “Wow! Someone really ripped Target off.” Then, as it sunk in, “How do we even prove this wasn’t us?” Mike immediately jumped on his phone and called Target. He explained what we found and they told him to bring it in sometime soon and they would refund us. (Thanks heavens!) A bit later, Mike opened our new storage ottoman to stuff a blanket inside and found it filled with a bunch of – get this – little girls’ school supplies. Hello Kitty notepads, .5 mechanical pencil refills, pink mechanical pencils, pens with big tufts of feathers on the end; you name it, it was in there!

So Saturday we took them all back to Target. (Not the ottoman of course, just its contents.) We walked up to Customer Service and unloaded. The kid was like, “Oh, that’s not cool.” His manager walked in and asked what was wrong. The kid showed him all the junk. The manager said they’d been have problems with people filling storage ottomans with stuff and then buying them. The wedding gift, he had to admit, was a new one! He called up another manager and told her it was time to start enforcing a “check-inside-storage-ottomans-at-register” rule. No kidding!