Sunday, November 9, 2014

kroger, ralph's, von's, tom thumb, safeway ... and piggly wiggly

If you shop at Kroger (Ralph's for you CA peeps) make sure you escape with all of your bags.  If you don't ... if you get home and discover your .75 cent Halloween mask you found on clearance is not in any of your bags ... you will have one heckofa time getting Kroger to care.

In my case, I got home without the two sparkly masks I found on clearance, the little Halloween mug also on clearance, my dear darling daughter's gluten free grape juice, her AGAVE nectar (no, I have no idea what this is) and a host of small items that help one to fill a Christmas shoebox gift for a little girl.

I will not drag this out, unlike the experience I had at Kroger tonight trying to retrieve my missing items or at least get a refund.  And neither came easily.  I had the customer service rep. from you-know-where and the most important thing I learned tonight?  Do NOT leave without all of your bags.  If you do ... and you return for the missing bag ... the customer service person from you-know-where will make you ... yes, MAKE YOU ... wander thoughout the store and find all of your items.

Did I KNOW all the items missing from my grocery collection?  Of course not.  I trusted that they still had my bag there.  And if you wander through the store KNOWING that you aren't going to find everything you are looking for and you come up short ... you will be MADE to dig through three shopping carts of stuff that needs to be reshelved.  Not just one time, but THREE times.  The kind folks at Kroger had no time for me and just wanted to keep me busy, I guess.

TWENTY MINUTES LATER ... and no items richer ... I summoned a manager.  Did he give me a refund?  Nope.  He asked me to do all the same things.  Did I?  Nope.  Been there, done that.  You know what happened next?  THE MANAGER WENT SHOPPING FOR ME.  I. Kid. You. Not.  Mr. Manager came back to me TEN MINUTES later with a little plastic bag of four items.

Nearly thirty minutes after I'd been in the store, I walked out with $2.14 in my hand and four items in a bag that I think were missing from my original order.  Not sure, not completely sure at all, though.

Wanna know the funny part?  At the 20 minute mark, I told the manager that my family waiting in the car was very ticked off.  (They had been texting me that they were getting quite impatient and what in the world was I doing in that store ... shopping????)  After all was said and done, Mr. Manager apologized and began to walk me to the door of the store with my new goodies in my hand.  Mr. Manager kept on walking, though.  And walking.  Beside me.  Finally I said, "Oh, you're coming out to calm my family down ..."  He nodded.  And together we walked to our car.  Of course Rick and Liz were as sweet as could be making me look like a fool.  But that's not the funny part.  I noticed a car next to ours with a blonde lady in it who apparently lived in her car.  Or she did an awful lot of shopping at Kroger.  Either way, I was not the only one who noticed her ... Mr. Manager did, too.  And when he was finished talking with Rick and Liz, he stepped over to chat with the blonde lady with all of the bags in her car.

That lady turned out to be his girlfriend/wife/significant other.  So what was the funny part?  He was never coming out to talk to Rick and Liz.  Nope.  He wasn't out there to unruffle any ruffled feathers.  Nope, he was out there on "business."  But I made him pit stop.

So the joke was on him!

Nah, it was still on me.

Nah, it was on him.  Later, I found the AGAVE nectar at home.  I got a free one from Kroger ... and it only cost me an extra trip to a grocery store, thirty very long minutes trapped at the Customer Service desk and the fun of trapping the manager into talking with Rick.  Yea, that's always fun.

;)

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