What Do I Know? What I Saw at the Returns Counter

Returning things is never fun. Especially during busy shopping seasons. Like Christmas. Or Back to School. Or really any holiday or annual event that retailers orchestrate.  

I was out among the shopping crowds recently and feeling pretty good about navigating the emotional landmines that can dot the retail landscape during the holidays for any number of reasons. Recent loss or childhood experiences. Or social overwhelm. Or even the rumble and tumble of happy family chaos. 

And I found myself standing in line at the Target Returns counter.

I had misread the “sale $5.99” sign for ground coffee in a fun cinnamon flavor. Looked like a great gift for my secret Santa. And hey, the price was so good I’d picked up a bag for myself.

Only that wasn’t the price. That price was only available if you purchased three bags, not two. Because, why not? Doesn’t everybody need lots of fun coffee during the holidays? Not me.

And I didn’t learn this fact until after I’d trotted back to the sale display to re-read the sign. And if I squinted just right, I could read the details in tiny type. I didn’t really want two bags of fun holiday coffee for myself. And most people on my gift list didn’t drink coffee.

So I’m in the return line, which is separated from the pickup line right next to it by a stanchion belt. And two women are in front of me.

The first woman in line is a blonde woman in an emerald green silk-like blouse and flattering jeans and stylish flats, those quilted black velvet kind. What we once called preppy or classic. When she turns around I see she’s probably in her 70s, maybe her 80s. Or a hard lived 60s. She’s looking around dramatically, sighing loudly, stepping forward and back, trying to get the cashier’s attention.

The second woman looks to be early 30s. Plain brown hair pulled back. Discount brand jeans, snug acrylic sweater. She is standing placidly, patiently, looking in the general direction of the first woman and the counter.

For no reason whatsoever – imagination, projection – I quickly assume a few things about these two women. That the older woman is a widow. And that the younger woman is a mother of one or two kids and she’s barely hanging on emotionally and/or financially.

Why do I assume such things? Why do I attach a story to each of them? Why these stories?

A married not-widowed 70-year-old woman could also dress stylishly and eventually complain to the cashier that the two lines they’ve set up seem to be really just one single line, and she keeps getting skipped for those who placed orders online. That’s something many women might do. Maybe she’s got a grumpy husband at home who grumbled about whatever item is in her bag being too expensive. Maybe she and her whole big family are going to dinner and she needs to hurry.

Am I judging her for huffing and puffing?

What do I know?

And why do I assume the younger woman has kids? Just because she stands patiently waiting. Maybe she, like me, has decided kids cost more money than she’ll ever be able to afford. Maybe she, like me, also knows parenting is a big overwhelming job easily messed up by the parents’ unexamined emotional baggage. And she doesn’t want to put any child through that.

Am I judging her for the unknown decisions she has made?

What do I know?

Am I judging these women by imagining these scenarios? I don’t think so.

Am I judging myself? Maybe my parents? Society?

Possibly.

What do I know?

I know that snap judgments pop into our minds in the briefest whisper of an instant.

I know it’s all too easy to make wrong assumptions about people based on our own fears, worries, anxieties, and histories.

I know we tell ourselves stories about our world and those around us, and they can often be fiction, not fact.

I know that standing in the returns line is as good a place as any for self-examination.

And forgiveness.

Coffee by Free-Photos from Pixabay/filtered from original
Shopping by Birgit Böllinger from Pixabay/filtered from original
Card reader by Rudy and Peter Skitterians from Pixabay/filtered from original