Stupidest Returns~

[wordgirl]

My niece had a weird one a few weeks ago. Some woman had bought her kid a set of Captain America: Civil War themed bedding and accessories before the movie came out, and came back in a few weeks ago .... she wanted to return it because of the "political message" of the film.

First off ... what? This was a big, complex (and really fantastic) movie, but without getting into fratching, I don't recall any clear political bias. Secondly, the movie came out in May. This happened in (checks watch) July.

Fortunately none of the stuff had been used, and was all in its original packaging, so they took it back, and a few days later someone else was thrilled to find a complete set of stuff and bought it all - at full price, because it had already rolled completely off the markdown list and they were still trying to get a ruling from management on how to price it.

[depechemodefan]

2 weeks?! Damn, you must sell to the slow readers. Give me a book I really want, and I'll tear through it in a day, see if I don't.

Today a guy buys 16 hard cover books, avg. of 400 pages each. I asked him if it would take him a month to read them, and he said it would take a week. He would spend his whole weekend reading and parts of the week. He said it drives his wife crazy. I guess the wife must be very lonely or pissed she has to do all the housework.

At the library, I would say our "stupidest returns" are the customers who return items belonging to other library systems. I know mistakes happen, but occasionally customers do return multiple items from "Nearby City Library System" in our bookdrop.

My dad did that once with a book I brought home from the school library. He dropped it off at the public library.

At the library I worked at, someone dropped off a porn dvd. I don't know if anyone took it home. Someone also dropped off an issue of Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 8. I took that home.

[protege]

Hechinger's had a very lenient return policy. They'd take back all sorts of things...even things that we didn't sell. Things like tires, store-brand (cheaply made shit) lawnmowers from other chains, dead plants, broken tools, and other worthless goods. All of this stuff was usually destroyed in some way by the customer.

For example, on the side of every water heater box is a huge warning to be careful with them. Water heaters are heavy as hell to begin with. Getting them into your truck is a pain in the ass. I should know--I spent two summers helping customers load their cars, and hated dealing with those damn coolers.

When we'd load those coolers, we'd make sure to pick them up and slide them into your pickup or station wagon. If you stood them upright, and tried to angle them in, by lifting from the bottom, and then sliding it in, you had a 99% chance of damaging the internal glass insulation. Same deal with unloading--if you let the heater hit the ground, it would usually shatter. Big ass warnings on the box as a precaution, and it wasn't supposed to be covered under warranty. Nor was the store supposed to take them back.

Yet, at least once a month, I'd get to hear some idiot returning a damaged water heater, and seeing yet another worthless item being carted into the warehouse. Little wonder that the chain went under

[Shannarah]

Just after our return policy was updated I had to do a return from a couple, who had a small (5oz?)
bottle of hot sauce, something like peri peri that had been opened.
The reason for the return.. because the sauce was hot

[wolfie]

Sounds like that customer can guzzle a Slurpee without suffering from brain freeze - for the same reason that Willie Nelson will never get ovarian cancer.

[workerbee222]

For example, on the side of every water heater box is a huge warning to be careful with them. Water heaters are heavy as hell to begin with. Getting them into your truck is a pain in the ass.

When our water heater died, we went to the big box store to buy a new one. We wheeled it out to the car and of course, it didn't fit. Late husband was a resourceful soul. He went into the big box store, bought a utility knife, cut the box off the heater. You can fit a water heater in the back of a Honda Civic. Just sayin'.

[dalesys]

... You can fit a water heater in the back of a Honda Civic. Just sayin'.

It just *looks* like it's praying for relief, with its front paws up in the air!

[protege]

You can fit a water heater in the back of a Honda Civic. Just sayin'.

You can also fit one of those 7-foot-high Billy bookcases in the back of a Toyota Corolla. Not recommended though, as the car will protest by screwing up its handling....and possibly driving the air out of a tire.

[Nunavut Pants]

You can fit a pretty large flat-screen TV (42", I think?), still in its box, in the back of a MINI Cooper...

Floored the guy who was bringing the TV out to the loading area, too.

[wolfie]

Is the cargo area of a Mini Cooper tall enough for that?

Note that large flatscreens DO NOT like to be transported flat. My theory is that it's due to the screen having a large, thin piece of glass supported at its edges, and that going over bumps would cause it to flex more than it can handle.

[Nunavut Pants]

Yes, it was upright. Well, at an angle, but I think more upright than flat.

[dawnfire]

we fit a computer rack which was about 6ft in the back of a suzuki soft top but we took the soft top off

[wolfie]

It's amazing how much small cars can hold. Couple examples:

My first car was roughly a year old when a guy behind me tried to run a light that changed. I was looking at possible replacements in case the insurance company totalled it (they didn't). At the Geo dealer, they had a base-model Metro hatchback and a higher-level sedan in the showroom. The hatch had fixed headrests, while the sedan had removable ones. I asked the salesman if the higher trim level hatch had removable headrests like the sedan. After quite a bit of back-and-forth, it turned out they had a higher-level hatch on the lot, but it would take quite a bit of work to get at it (i.e. I couldn't take measurements). When I found out that it had the same headrests as the sedan, I went to the sedan, took off the passenger headrest, slid the seat all the way forward, reclined it, and folded the rear seat. Measuring from point "A" (footwell) to point "B" (can't recall exactly) on the sedan, and "B" to "C" (immediately inside the hatch) on the hatchback, showed that a narrow 8 foot object would fit in the high-level hatchback with the hatch closed. Salesman was shocked - and if he was sharp, he'd have remembered it as an extra feature to upsell someone to the higher trim level of the hatchback.

Back when I worked with computers, a co-worker and I were both on a business trip to Microsoft, and we needed to transport 7 boxes from the lab we had been using them at to Microsoft's shipping department. Since we had arrived at different times, we each had a rental car (Ford Escort hatchback for me, Mazda 626 for him). The Mazda was a bigger car. Of the 7 boxes, one (not one at a time - only one box) would fit in the Mazda. The Escort could hold any 2 at the same time.

[Racket_Man]

You would be surprised what one can fit in a small car

I used to own a 1984 Toyoda Tercel 3 door hatchback with a moon/sunroof.

I once hauled (all at once) from major city S to major City C (a distance of 300 miles). the items were from my parents house just after they sold their house and I got stuff

a full 5 drawer dresser in the hatch area (with the back seats folded down hatch fully closed)
a larger dresser securely roped and tied to the roof (Used 2 different sets of ropes for redundancy)
5 or 6 small boxes of stuff in the passenger seat

YES my gas mileage sucked and I had to battle a little car with a BIG blunt object on the roof in a nice wind but yeah I did it. I had more stuff that went with 2 friends in another car.

Oh the stuff I have moved in cars.

[Nunavut Pants]

I've hauled an 8-foot step-ladder in a tiny two-seater car--smaller than a Miata! Vertically, out the (convertible) roof. The gate guards on the military base where I worked at the time didn't bat an eye. In the same car, I have hauled a 10-foot fake tree. My wife was holding the base between her feet with the top waaaaay above the roof. There was only one person in a 15-minute trip who even seemed to take notice!

I also drove 4 dozen (or more?) full-size fully-inflated helium balloons from the party store to our house for my 40th birthday party. Out the sunroof of my Honda CRX (think two-seat Civic hatchback). That one got noticed, in part because I had to drive at ~5 MPH the whole way back for fear of the balloons popping. The SUV full of kids that passed us on the way went completely bonkers!!