What Is Wrong With People These Days?
By
GRUMPS
Let's get this straight, I am not really a grumpy old bastard by nature. I actually enjoy life and have arrived at this point in time, well over fifty years from my birth, without murdering anyone, yet. But my patience is being tried, it seems that something has gone horribly weird with the world and I am starting to wonder the hell is wrong with people these days. Let me give a recent example from my life:
I went with my dear wife to a branch of one of the UK's biggest DIY stores to spend my hard earned money on new doors to replace perfectly good ones that didn't quite meet the requirements of she that insists on being obeyed. So walking the required two steps to the rear I followed her into this giant warehouse style store and was persuaded to give my opinion on a series of interior doors. In truth I have no opinion on doors, they either open into a pub, equals good or they don't, equals bad and that's about it really, for me at least. But the omnipotent one needed to justify wasting my beer tokens on these things so I played along with the game and enthused about the style and the solidity and the secure feel and the depth and basically I lied my backside off just to keep the peace. 'You don't like them do you?' she said, sensing that my praise may have been a little too lavish, she knows me too well and none of these doors opened into a boozer so they all failed to meet my basic criteria of what constitutes a good door. But we now had a decision, the door for the kitchen was selected and at just £28.75p it looked a fair deal, that equates to say 10 pints of Guinness, for a door. Now we needed handles and again I was asked to admire a wide variety that all did the same thing, open a door. There were brass ones with patterns and no patterns and ceramic ones with inserts, stainless steel ones that shone like silver and brushed steel ones that didn't. I tried, I honestly did try, to appear interested in this exercise but she knew I was faking it when I suggested chrome steel ones 'You know they won't go with the kitchen' she said in a accusing tone, as if I hadn't been paying attention when actually I hadn't the first clue about these things.
Eventually we arrived at the check out point, you will likely have been to one of these, you know the place, there is usually a queue half a mile long and everyone in front of you is trying to use last years credit card that can't be read by the electronic bandit. Finally we got there and I watched in amazement as the door we had so carefully selected rang through the till at £74.50 and not the £28.75 that it was advertised at in the racks within the store. Spotting this mistake I pointed it out to the lady checking the goods through and received a very strange response, not what I expected at all. 'You don't think this door is £28.50p do you?...well if it was I would be buying one!'. 'Well yes I did think it was £28.50p actually as that was the price it was advertised at in the rack alongside the other half dozen exactly like it all at that price' I replied, at which point she sent for the manager. Now my nearest and dearest is not too keen on me speaking my mind in public so I remained calm and waited whilst said manager went and checked the price of the door, it did indeed say £28.50p he agreed BUT. 'Someone, likely members of the public, have put the doors into the wrong place', he said. I mean am I supposed to believe that the public go round huge DIY warehouses relocating stacks of doors? I was at the point of asking if I had turned totally green when my wife nudged me. Declining the manager's kind offer to purchase said door at the £74.50p price I walked out of the store in disgust and waited for my wife, who had to pay for the door handles, in the car.
Later that afternoon as I sat reading a book I chanced to see the receipt for the new door handles that my wife had paid for. These handles had been advertised for sale at £8.99p a pair in the store but the receipt showed that she had actually been charged £14.75p a pair. When I spoke to the duty officer of the local Trading Standards unit I was advised that it is in fact a criminal offence to advertise goods in a store at one price and then offer them for sale at a higher price at the till. So what were the trading standards officials going to do about my complaint? They said they would telephone the manager and advise him.
The next day my wife decided that she required two more door handles and insisted we go back to the same store to purchase these as it is close to our home and despite what happened she liked the wide selection. Quite quickly she found two pairs of handles that met her requirements and we carefully checked the price £5.75p. each. Imagine the surprise when they rang through the till at £16.98p. Again the manager arrived, a different one this time, again the price was checked and yes they were advertised at £5.75 but, according to this manager, the public had been at it again messing with the stock. What on earth is wrong with people these days, can't they go shopping without relocating the goods? doors, brass handles and God knows what else are being moved around this DIY giant's warehouse stores, shifted from rack to shelf and shelf to rack causing innocent shoppers, such as myself, to be vastly overcharged. If you are one of these mystery stock movers kindly stop it now before I break the habit of a lifetime and saw off your head!