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Training with the Master

There was no doubt about it: I was terrible at it from the very beginning.

When my brother and I were growing up, our favorite store in our hometown was the Five and Ten. One evening just before dinner in early December, when our ages were still single-digit numbers, we found ourselves in that emporium wiling away the time while our mother ran some errands nearby.

There were all sorts of wonderful things there for a boy in the early 1950s: these included hobby kits to build antique model automobiles (my interest), and stamp albums along with packets of stamps from around the world (my brother's preference.)

But today we were looking for something (more specifically: something that I could afford) which I could get my brother for his birthday. We looked at such wonders as plastic model DeSoto taxicabs whose doors and trunk opened up. He finally chose a yellow water pistol in the shape of a machine gun.

Then he left the store; for it would not be seemly for him to see me in the act of purchasing his own birthday present. I took one of the pistols off the shelf, brought it over to the main counter in the center of the room, handed it to the man standing there (whom I knew to be the owner), and said with an emphatic certainty that belied my usual reticent demeanor, "I'll take this." The man said something I've never forgotten:

"Water gun for fifty-nine."

He took the pistol from me and wrapped it in brown paper. I paid him. Then I left the store with that warm cozy feeling one gets when one has done a good deed for someone.

It was already dark at that time of day at that time of year. My mother and brother were parked in the Kaiser waiting for me right in front of the store. Holding the package, I got into the back seat with my brother. And at that point my feelings of altruistic bliss turned quickly into the torments of hell.

Brother: "Did you get that stupid water gun? I didn't want that!"

Mother: "Teddy, why did you buy that for him? Can't you see that he doesn't want it? You're going to have to take it back! Ugh -- your father will be home any minute!"

I begged not to have to do this but I was given no choice: I had to go back into the store -- and quickly. With a heavy heart I passed through the door.

The owner saw me and asked, "Can I help you with something?"

I was feeling terrible. Here was a man who was in the business of selling things to people; that is how he earned his living. Furthermore, he just expressed a desire to help me. And what am I about to do? Dash his fondest hopes -- and his livelihood -- to the ground! I felt like the lowest heel.

"I -- I have to bring this back." I handed him the package.

The man's brow wrinkled: clearly I was already causing him pain. He began to unwrap it. "What seems to be the trouble?"

I was stuck there: did I want to tell him what had happened with my brother and my mother? Not on your life -- I would have sooner crawled over broken glass! On the other hand, I had not prepared myself for that question. So I blurted out the first thing that popped into my head: "The trigger's broken."

The man looked at the trigger and tried it for a few seconds. I saw his brow begin to darken: now he was growing angry. When he looked up at me and spoke, his voice had an eerie calmness about it:

"This trigger is fine. You lied to me. I'll give you your money back. But I never want to see you in this store again!"

I took my money and left the store forever. Inside the car I began to tell my mother and brother what had happened; but I was so upset that I burst into tears. At that display my brother began to mock me, while my mother yelled at me because of my behavior in the store. Once home, my father yelled at me some more. Dinner was not pleasant.

And thus ends that charming little tale. I can see that there are some deep currents at work in the above scenario: a brother's betrayal, a mother's lack of understanding, deflected altruism, and all the rest. These provide fertile ground for some future memoirs.

But I've decided to take a more modest tack here and spin a fantasy based on the banal obviousness of the following phrase:

I realized that I was terrible at taking things back.

I knew that I never wanted to be in that sort of horrible and embarrassing situation again. (Unfortunately, for my favorite store it was too late.) Admittedly, there wasn't much I could do to control my mother and my brother. However, there was one thing I could work on for improvement: my skills at returning things.

As it turned out, there happened to be someone else living in our house who was a veritable genius at taking things back. I would seek his advice. So a few evenings later I swallowed my pride and summoned all my nerve to approach my father while he was reading the Newark Evening News. I began thusly:

"Dad -- Dad -- I -- I -- the other night -- I -- that is, you..."

My father did not have much tolerance for such mealy-mouthed behavior: "Come, Teddy, what's the trouble? You can give it to me straight -- spit it out, I won't bite your head off!" So I summoned all my courage and rhetorical skills as follows:

"Dad, no doubt you recall what happened to me in the store the other night. That was really terrible and I never want to have it happen again. So I -- I want you to teach me the way you take things back to a store. I have observed you, and I've noticed that you're very good at it; in fact, I'd say you were a natural!" (Needless to say, I didn't mention how much he embarrassed our family while we were in various stores.)

My father bit off my head: "Geez, wazzamaddawiya?! How are you going to learn to become a man if you can't stand on your own two feet?" He had been born before the turn of the century, and as a result he was a great advocate for the idea of self-reliance as found in the works of Horatio Alger, his favorite author. (I was glad that he wasn't the one who taught us swimming, with his sink-or-swim attitude!)

But I flattered him so much (while hiding my disgust) and begged so shamelessly (from which he didn't bother to hide his) that he finally agreed to take me on as an apprentice back-taker.

He told me that there were three essential things I needed to master in order to become an expert: Body-language (as he called it -- he seems to have anticipated the expression by a few decades, the Statement, and the Reason(s). He told me that he would bring me with him to a store over the weekend to begin my lessons.

1. Body-language:

When I told my mother about our conversation, she laughed and said to me, "You can learn a lot about that just by observing your father as he watches the prize fights on Friday nights!" I knew well what she was talking about: he would go to a sort of belligerent trance. He would sit on the edge of the couch and then, as the fight progressed, become more and more agitated. A wild look would come into his eyes, and he bared his clenched teeth. Meanwhile he was flailing away with his fists. For all intents and purposes my father was fighting every Friday night.

The next day my father took me to a store where he 'needed' to return something. He said to me, "I'd like you to stay out of earshot and to just watch my body-language this first time out."

Now although I was only nine years old at that time, I had already witnessed my father returning things innumerable times. As I said before, I remembered how embarrassed we all were because he always seemed to be belligerently accosting store personnel about something or other. (He was of medium height and build; so I think that he cherished a context in which he, a physical nonentity, could be the aggressor in a public confrontation.) In fact, so much did he like returning items that I sometimes suspected him of deliberately buying things he didn't want just so he could later indulge himself in the pleasure of bringing them back.

But at those times I have been embarrassed because I was a member of his family. Now I had a newfound scientific interest in his behavior: I was doing research. If my father's back-taking was a canker on the body of our family, I was beginning to inject myself with some of its venom.

I observed him at the store. As he went up to the counter and approached the manager, he became transformed in front of my very eyes. No longer was he the rather pathetic little public man of my acquaintance. I noticed that his body assumed the crouched posture of a welterweight boxer; in fact, with his navy watch cap, he resembled what I imagined to be a scrapper down on the Jersey City docks. And, in the way he leaned towards his adversary while bobbing his head, he was a coiled serpent which might lash out at any moment. In doing all that, my father had intuitively compressed his behavior during the prize fight into a subtle collection of vaguely menacing gestures. It was a masterful bit of acting.

The manager never had a chance.

2. The Statement:

That evening my father called me into the living room and wanted to hear what I would say first in the event I was bringing something back. I stammered out my first attempt:

Me: "I -- I wonder whether you would allow me to return this item?"

Dad: "That is the most wishy-washy thing I've heard all week! You are 'wondering' whether they would 'allow' you to bring the item back? You are almost begging them to refuse! No -- you need to get rid of the namby-pamby pandering and just say what you want."

Me: "I'd like to return this item."

Dad: "You put it in some kind of hypothetical form, as if it's not real that you're standing there with the bloody item in your hand. In short, don't beat about the bush -- just say it!"

Me: "I want to return this item."

Dad: "Of course you 'want' to return it -- why else would you be there? Can you leave your wants out of it and just state what you are literally doing?"

Me: "I am returning this item." I paused, exhausted.

Dad: "Bravo! Do you see how clear and chaste that is? No manager can argue with that simple statement of fact."

Me: "But it's so direct, so aggressive, so -- brazen..."

Dad: "Yes. And there's something of a threat in it as well: it seems to want to continue with the words, '... whether you want me to or not!'"

Me: "I still don't see how one can succeed with that, it is so blunt and obvious!" I was of the school of thought which assumed that the best way to get someone to do something was by cajolery and flattery.

My father thought about this for a moment. Then he said:

Dad: "A few years ago I ran a series of informal experiments on this very idea, and they taught me something very interesting. Here’s how it all started: one afternoon while I was down at the plant, I was waiting in line to make a blueprint when I was called to the phone. It was your mother needing me for an emergency at home. I had to have a blueprint as soon as I came back. So I did something that I never had done before (well, at least not since my school days): I cut into the front of the line while saying, ‘Excuse me but I wonder if you would allow me to make my copies now? I have an emergency at home which I have to attend to right away!’ Thankfully, the line parted for me and I was able to make my blueprints.

"I thought about this incident over the next few weeks. Something gnawed at me: was I allowed into the line because of my sob story, or was it due to something more basic? Like a good engineer, I had to find out. So a few days later I cut into the blueprint-making line again, this time with the words, 'I wonder if I might cut in? I am in a hurry and need to make copies.' To my surprise (and delight), the line parted like the Red Sea and I was allowed once more to make blueprints early.

"Well -- I couldn't stop there -- I had to carry things to their logical conclusion! I had found out that the sob story wasn't necessary; I wondered whether any excuse was? So I allowed another few weeks to pass and then once again I cut into the line using the words, 'Excuse me -- I need to make copies.' Wonderfully, miraculously, the line parted for me.

"Do you see? No bona fide excuse was necessary, only a literal statement of intention (I wonder whether any statement, no matter how irrelevant, might have sufficed, such as 'Excuse me -- it's raining out!'?) The only criterion is that one must make the statement with absolute confidence, in such a way that no one feels they would dare argue with it. Of course it always helps to ask to be excused!"

3. The Reason(s):

My father knew that he had to gradually ease me into learning the art of returning things to a store. He told me that he would start me out in the simplest possible sort of public situation, something "to break the ice": the Returns counter at Korvettes. He described it thusly:

"At those stores there is a counter, labeled 'Returns', which is solely dedicated to that activity. One stands in line, and when one's turn comes, one simply hands the goods one wishes to relinquish to the girl behind the counter. And here is the great thing: one does not have to even say the hated words, "I am returning this." For that's the whole purpose of that counter! Does the girl care about the fact that you are returning something (perhaps she owns a sizable chunk of Korvettes stock)? Not a whit! The only things she cares about are her salary of $0.93 per hour (or whatever it is), and being able to find the right bin in which to toss (with utter indifference) said returned items.

"True, one must interact with the girl in two ways. First of all, she will ask for a sales receipt; without it you can not receive a refund (though I have a couple of ways to get around that too.) Second, she will ask you for the reason why you are making the return. This would seem like a moment fraught with the most danger: give the wrong answer, and you will be scourged, mocked, and then run out of the store on a rail. Are you worried? Relax! Wonderfully, unbelievably, this is one of those rare situations in life where no answer is wrong! No doubt the purpose in collecting these responses is for the management to determine which products are undesirable and in what ways. (There is probably some lower level functionary whose sole job it is to pour over those entrails and attempt to make rhyme or reason of them.)

"In short, Korvettes is the perfect place for you to start honing your back-taking skills."

So my father drove me to Korvettes on the next Saturday. He began the process of my initiation by purchasing, seemingly at random, six items: an extra-large man's shirt, a woman's dress, a pair of boots, a frying pan, a very large velvet 'painting', and a water gun. On one of these he held back the sales receipt; but he told me what to say when the girl asked for it. He gave me a small pep talk:

"Remember: no place can argue over a personal preference. (If you say you don't like something for whatever reason, what can they do?) And don't forget: with a firm statement you can get whatever you want.

"Now go up to that counter and have fun! Stay loose! Give your imagination free reign! Let this outing be cathartic [I didn't know this word but he explained it to me] for your past trauma! Remember: no answer is wrong!"

I took the six items up to Returns. I could hardly see over the counter. At first the girl didn't notice me (she was filing her nails until I piped up in my high-pitched voice, "I'm returning these!". Then she said in a flat bored tone without locking: "First item please." She held out her hand.

I handed her the extra-large shirt along with the receipt. She checked the two to ascertain that they belonged together. Then she drawled: "Reason for return?" She was already poised with a Bic pen over a standard form they used there.

"I don't like the color," I replied with the firm emphasis I had learned from my father. The girl dutifully checked the appropriate box on the sheet ["Wrong Color."] She took the shirt and tossed it back into a bin behind her. She never compared my size (I was a small thin lad) to the size of the shirt; or if she did she didn't care. This served to embolden me.

Women's dress: "It doesn't fit me." ["Wrong size"]

Work boots: "I don't have the receipt, because they were a gift, but I know they were brought here because I saw them on the shelf." ["Gift return."]

Frying pan: "I don't cook -- and neither does my wife." ["Cannot use item."]

Velvet 'painting': "Originally I had shoplifted this; but my conscience kicked in and anyway I had gotten tired of it. So I forged a sales receipt, and here I am." ["Dissatisfaction with item."]

Water gun: "The trigger's broken." ["Item defective."]

And that was that, the purging of all my paranoia.

Over the next several months my father would lead me through a graduated series of intricacies in back-taking at various stores (the 'final exam' was the successful return of an item from a 'No Returns' sale), to the point where he proudly deemed me to be 'an expert'. But that first session at Korvettes was by far the most fun and liberating.

By the time I was ten, I was actually relishing the prospect of returning something -- just like my father.

Addendum: I recall one situation in which my father did not take an item back to a store employee. He had bought something or other that he wanted to exchange -- it was really quite insignificant, small enough to fit into a small paper bag. I remember (I was with him at the time) that he simply walked into the store, went back to where he had gotten the item, took it out of his bag and put it back on the shelf, plucked the item he wanted off the shelf and dropped it into his bag, and then proceeded to leave the store.

Or tried to. There was a store detective at the door who stopped him and demanded to know what was in the bag. Luckily, my father had the sales receipt from the old item; and the new item cost exactly the same. So he was just admonished by the detective to "go through proper channels next time!"

Do you see what my father was doing? From his standpoint he was just being efficient. But he was doing what I could only dream of doing in my early years: he was eliminating the middleman.

(6 June 2008)