Return

I’d never returned anything from Amazon until I fat-fingered ordering a silicon phone caseone size too big. The process was easy enough and I took my too big phone case to the local UPS store sandwiched between an Urgent Care Clinic and Juju Nail Salon. I handed the case to a kid named Damien, and admitted, “I don’t know how to do this.”

“Oh, it’s super easy,” Damien said, and he took the case from me. “Happens all the time.”

I wanted to ask him what the weirdest thing he’d ever seen returned was, but decided against it. I didn’t want to make him feel too uncomfortable. He looked young enough to still blush when buying condoms.

“That’ll be a dollar. I need to put it in a bag,” Damien said.

I pulled out a $5, handed it to him and said, “Can I get the change in two $2 bills, please?”

“Of course,” he said.

Oh, what joy I felt as he popped open the cash drawer, slid in the $5, and moved to collect the change. His hand shifted between the $5s and the $1s like he’d simply overlooked the $2s. I saw the joke register in the way he blinked slowly and looked up at me. I put out my hand and grinned Cheshire. It was the grin that made me a nightmare to parent.

“That was good,” Damien said.

“It’s a gift.”

-be cool and care