This could
be the answer to all my prayers, or at least the most important ones.
I raced over
to REI like I was being chased. When I
got there, I went directly to customer service.
“Excuse me,
sir?” I whispered, breathless. “I heard
that you come over and wash people’s clothes for them? That, like, it is a service included when you
buy something?”
He guffawed. “Ha!
Who told you that?”
“Well, I am
a blogger, and, uh, one of my readers mentioned …”
“You know we
only offer that on full-price items, right?
Not sale.” He said the word sale like it was dirty and offensive,
like you might say dog poop on my shoe.
“Oh,” I
rallied, “I didn’t mean sale.” I matched
his tone on the word sale, but tried
to take it up a notch, like vomit on my
new suede jacket.
“Oh, okay
then. Yes. Of course we offer that service. How do you think we would get away with charging
such insanely high prices otherwise? We would
be out of business in two seconds.”
I nodded
enthusiastically.
“Okay, just
come back up after you find something, and we’ll make sure you are eligible for
the service. It’s called ‘R-E-Icing-on-the-cake.’”
Leave it to
REI to come up with something clever like that.
“And by the way, what does REI stand for, anyway? I heard it stood for Recreational Equipment,
Inc?”
“That is
what we tell the public,” he leaned in conspiratorially. “It actually stands for Really Expensive
Items.”
I started
looking around for something I could afford.
I found some cute mittens right away and noticed they were only
$48. If that is what it took to get an
REI employee over to my house to do laundry, so be it.
“I’d like to
buy these,” I chirped merrily, like someone who just won the jackpot in Vegas
after only playing one dollar. “Those are children’s mittens,” said the clerk dismissively. “Did you know that?”
Ah,
details. I put the mittens back and
looked for something else. I quickly found
a wool knit hat for $75.
“I guess I’ll
buy this, then,” I squeaked semi-merrily, like someone who just won the jackpot in Vegas
after only playing one dollar twice.
“Oooh,
sorry, that just went on sale.” He frowned, as if I was trying to trade in counterfeit
chips in Vegas after I thought I won the jackpot. “That means R-E-Icing-on-the-cake would not
be applicable in this instance.”
Dammit. Story of my life. Every time I try to pay full price, someone
forces me to pay less.
I searched in
vain for more full price items. The only
thing I could find was a kayak.
“Would I be
eligible with the kayak?” I whimpered.
“No. A kayak is not considered clothing. In that case, we would offer you kayak
cleaning service, plus we would be happy to clean whatever else is around,
like, say, your entire garage.”
I smiled and
got out my credit card. One swipe and $1400
later, I was the proud owner of a new kayak.
I knew just
where I would store it: in the
kitchen. Then next week I plan to move
it to the bathroom, and then the study, and finally, the storage room.
This new venture of mine will pay off after only four weeks. Icing on the cake, indeed.
MOV
