Theatre Lighting Design, Technical Direction and Consulting

Charles R. Kaiser
Aurora, Ontario CANADA

A Pleasant Day at Wal*Mart

For Christmas this year my mom in Albuquerque sent me the DVDs of Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. They were in fullscreen format and were not the extended versions of the films. I really wanted the widescreen versions with the bookends and the Gollum figure, and was planning on buying them myself.

I figured that I would be out of luck returning them here in Canada, but I knew that Wal*Mart often will take things back even if they are from the States. When we got to the store there was a special line for returns without receipts for store credit only. My wife had no trouble returning her items, but the DVDs did not come up on their system. Since they had none in stock there was no way to get a price for the return. I figured as much. I thanked the girl for trying and went to take a look around the store anyway.

A few minutes later, a page came over the speakers in the store asking for the man who was trying to return the Lord of the Rings DVDs to come back to the checkout. When I returned, the young lady said that she had found one of the same items as a Canadian version as a return, and said that she could at least give me a credit for that one. I asked if I could return both at the same price and she said she would have to ask her manager. The manager said yes, and I got a gift card for the amount to use of a future purchase.

This young lady really went out of her way to help me out. I think that she might have been willing to do it because I was pleasant, thanked her for her efforts and commented that I would not want her job that day for any amount of money. I got a laugh and a smile and a young lady who went the extra mile and it didn't cost me a dime.

A letter to the store will be on its way tomorrow.