The complaint

This is a short story. It is fiction.

“Morning. Returning this.”

“Right you are. Do you have the receipt?”

“I do.”

“Lovely. And what seems to be the— ah. Right. This is the fourteenth of March.”

“It is.”

“It’s November.”

“I know what month it is.”

“It’s a thirty-day returns policy, is the thing. It’s on the receipt. It’s on the bottom there in the small bit.”

“I’ve read it.”

“So you’ll appreciate—”

“I do appreciate it. I’d like to return it.”

“…Is it faulty?”

“No.”

“Because if it’s faulty, that’s different, that’s a different form and there’s no time limit on faulty, so if you wanted to have a think about whether it might be—”

“It works perfectly.”

“Right.”

“It makes very good bread.”

“They’re a good model, that one. My sister’s got one.”

“Does she use it?”

“Twice. Christmas and once in the summer when she had people.”

“Mm.”

“So it’s not faulty and you’ve had it eight months.”

“Correct.”

“And you want to return it.”

“Yes.”

“I’m going to be straight with you, I can’t do that.”

“No. I didn’t think you would be able to.”

“…”

“…”

“Can I ask you something and you can tell me to mind my own.”

“You can ask.”

“Why have you carried a bread maker on the bus in November to a shop you know isn’t going to take it back?”

“…”

“Take your time.”

“It was a present.”

“Right.”

“For my sixtieth. In March.”

“Right.”

“She was very pleased with herself about it. She’d heard me say once, once, that shop bread had gone downhill.”

“And she’s…”

“In August.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thank you.”

“…”

“It’s on the worktop. It takes up a great deal of the worktop. And every time I go in there to put the kettle on it is sitting there being a present from my sister, and I cannot use it and I cannot put it in a cupboard because putting it in a cupboard would be a decision, and I cannot give it to a charity shop for the same reason, and I have been walking round it since August.”

“…So you thought if the shop took it back.”

“Then it wouldn’t have been me.”

“…”

“It’s a very stupid piece of reasoning. I’m aware of that. I’ve had eight months with it.”

“It’s not stupid.”

“It is, rather.”

“…Right. Here’s what I can do.”

“You said you couldn’t.”

“I can’t take it back. I can put it behind the counter for you.”

“…Behind the counter.”

“I’m on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. It’ll be here. If in a month you want it, you come and get it and there’s no conversation about it. If in a month you don’t, you don’t come, and I’ll see it goes somewhere it gets used.”

“That isn’t a returns policy.”

“No.”

“…”

“Do you want to write your name on it or shall I just remember you.”

“…You can just remember me.”

“Right you are. Mind the step on the way out, it’s wet.”

Neither of them at any point says what the conversation is about. The policy is real, the refusal is real, and the thing that is actually offered is not on any form.

For another story in which the official answer and the real answer are different, The second key.