From Fiona, January 2010:

Dearest Retail Hell,

Another story for you from the depths of the shoe store jungle. 

My husband and I own and work in a shoe store.

There is parking right outside the door and we have big glass windows all along the front of the shop.

One day my husband served a young Asian couple (I wasn’t there at the time). 

They took ages for her to try on sale shoes, and in the end she argued for a further discount on an already well discounted pair of shoes, as she had found a tiny mark on the leather (was probably part of the natural leather grain). 

My husband refused to lower the price further. 

We are well used to customers trying to create imaginary faults in a shoe to get a discount (sorry, deescount).

Sometimes we’ll take another small token amount off and the customer leaves happy. Depends how much of a dog the shoe is and what kind of a mood we’re in and how nice the customer is.

On this day he’d had enough of this couple and said ‘the price is the price’ basically. 

So after mucking him around and not getting the shoes for 150% off the original price, they left. 

Not long after the man came back into our store.

Turns out someone had backed into his car just as he was leaving and he wanted to know if my husband had seen that it was the other person’s fault and could be an insurance witness for him.

‘Sorry mate, I didn’t see the accident, as I was putting away the shoes your wife didn’t buy’.  (his exact words - 'the shoes your wife didn't buy' - classic).

A sweet moment for a retail slave to savor.

--Fiona