Prompt: Caveat Emptor, first posted 12 January 2011
Title: Read and Return
Universe: General
Rating: PG
Genre: Humour
Characters: OC bookstore employee & The Riddler
Word Count: 500
Summary: Some bookstores have needlessly petty rules on when you can and can't return a puzzle book you've already scribbled all over. Harsh.
Read and Return
A weekday afternoon manning the customer service desk of a well-known bookstore was not an exciting shift, and the young red-haired sales assistant had spent the first hour after lunch listlessly re-arranging the closest shelves by height, then colour, and was regretfully about to return them to their original head-office-approved alphabetical state before the manager noticed and issued everyone with another 'Shelving Procedures' memo.
She spotted the man wearing a funky-looking green hat as he entered the store, and darted back behind the counter when she saw he was making a beeline for her desk. He looked slightly disgruntled, but even dealing with a complaint would break up the boredom of shelving books.
"Excuse me; I would like to get a refund, if you please," the man said politely enough as he stepped up to the counter, handing across what looked to be a quiz book.
She took the book from his hand and glanced at its condition, noting the tell-tale cracking of the spine and misalignment of pages that indicated it had been well-thumbed; most likely another read-and-return attempt. She leafed through a few pages and was surprised to see notes in red ink scribbled across may of the questions. Someone had also filled in all of the answer grids – again in ink! This was slightly less subtle than most return attempts.
She gave the suited man her best 'firm but pleasant' customer service desk smile.
"I'm sorry sir but I can't let you return this – it's been written in."
The man's expression remained blandly quizzical beneath that wonderfully bizarre bowler hat, and he made no effort to take the book back from her as she held it out. She wasn't sure he had understood her.
"Since you've written in it the book is no longer in a saleable condition, sir," she explained, gesturing to the book in her hand. "I'm sorry but I can't accept it back for a refund."
"Well of course I wouldn't want you to sell it to anyone else," the man replied, looking faintly aghast at the prospect. "No one else should be placed in a position to accidentally purchase such a childish attempt at a puzzle book. I'm seriously considering making a claim against the publisher for misrepresentation."
He firmly pointed to the cover of the book, which bore the title 'Impossible Puzzles' and the strapline 'hours of brain-stretching entertainment!'.
"Those puzzles were neither brain-stretching nor entertaining, and I completed them in just over 27 minutes."
"I'm not sure that's an approved reason for granting a refund," she explained hesitantly, then had to cut the man off thirty seconds in to what looked set to be a lengthy tirade against the purveyors of poorly-written puzzle books. "Let me call my manger over, sir, he might be able to help you out here."
Stubborn policy-obsessed manager versus stubborn red-pen-wielding customer – who would win? Would blood be shed?
She wondered just what the official head-office procedure for dealing with aggrieved, bowler-hatted puzzle nerds was anyway…
Fin
End note: Yay for greater organisation and not leaving writing this to 11pm on the night before the deadline! Although it is still all quite random. If the manager isn't careful there could well be blood shed; I don't think Eddie would content himself with a strongly worded letter to their head office.
On a random trivia note, I actually find shelving books quite soothing and had a childhood ambition to be a librarian. Alas for lost childhood dreams! ;D