roses in my heart

How Ironic...

Today we took back a DVD that Les received for Christmas to one of the local Christian bookstores here. When we tried to watch the DVD last night, it skipped in several places and so we didn't get very far. So today we took the DVD back hoping to be able to exchange it for another copy.

Since Christmas we have been to a few different stores to do returns and exchanges. Most seem to have fairly generous policies and were only too happy to help us out. I suppose that is why I'm still thinking about our experience at this "Christian" store today. It was quite the opposite. You see, when we approach the counter and explained the problem, the clerk didn't immediately try to remedy our problem and obtain a new DVD for us or provide us with a refund or a gift card for that matter. Rather, the clerk's response was to ask exactly where the skips were on the DVD as she would have to view the DVD herself before doing anything else. I explained where the skips were on the parts of the DVD we were able to watch (after a certain point, the skipping was so bad, the DVD was unwatchable). She then took the DVD to the back of the store to the children's area where they had TV and DVD player that was currently playing a Veggie Tales video. She then said that she would have to view these skips for herself. After I helped her with her own technical issues in operating the DVD player, I then showed her some of the skips on the DVD. Satisfied that there were indeed skips on the DVD, she did not proceed back to the cash register as I had hoped to help remedy the problem for us. Instead she said she would need to review this with her manager and could not promise that they would take the DVD back. In the end, they determined that they would replace the DVD for us, but, of course, they didn't have any in stock, so they would order one for us and call us when one came in. In the meantime, we got no refund, no gift card or in-store credit on the DVD return, just their word that they would call us when our new DVD came in...

We took their word, but the irony of it stuck with me. They certainly didn't take our word that the DVD skipped, and I guess that rubbed me a bit the wrong way. We've never had a problem returning anything this season at the secular stores we went to, but today, at this "Christian" store, we were treated suspiciously when we were simply returning a defective product, simply wanting a working version of the exact same thing. And all this in a place where there are books and cds galore on topics like grace and love, it felt more than just a little bit ironic to me.