UPDATED: A Shady Mall Parable

[This morning, I started fretting that people would think I was being casually racist by using the term “ghetto”. To be clear, I was using “ghetto” to mean crappy and substandard, not to refer to anyone’s race. (There were actually no people of color involved in this story.) Even so, I’m editing the post just a bit.]

Eight days ago, I got an iPhone.

(I know I was talking about this months ago, but I’ve already told you I need to say I’m going to do something for a while before I actually do it.)

It’s a delight, as you might expect:

• I play Words with Friends;
• Yesterday, I documented a family birthday celebration with Instagram photos;
• I watched, from the ether, myself as a blue dot meandering around Orange County this afternoon;
• I’m reading my book club book anywhere I want because it’s ON MY PHONE;
• And when I don’t know a word in the book (Pulphead by John Jeremiah Sullivan—P.S. That’s how I want to write when I grow up.), I put my fanger on it, and the definition pops up.

WE LIVE IN THE FUTURE.

Anywhoodle, I wanted to research and order from the Internet (THE FUTURE) the perfect cover, which would both be protective and express the whimsy that is Amy Scott. But when I canceled my insurance three days after purchase because it had a stupidly large deductible of which I had not been informed—honestly, eleven bucks a month and then $169 for a replacement, no thank you—I got all panicky and bought safety ware at the shady phone cover kiosk (redundancy of that phrase noted) in the shady mall.

I pointed at the cases. “How much are the iPhone covers?” I asked.

“Solid colors are $15.99, patterns are $17.99,” said the salesgirl. That seemed a little steep for a piece of plastic from China, but as I said, I was desperate. She pulled the one I wanted out of the display. “Do you want a screen protector?”

“Oh, that doesn’t come with it? How much is that?” I said.

“$9.99. It’ll keep your screen from getting scratched. I can put it on for you.”

Service. “OK,” I replied, “I guess I better get one of those too.”

I got distracted for a second by a pair of very unfortunate skinny jeans walking by, and when I looked back, she was cutting a piece of sticky plastic to fit on my phone. I was reconciling in my mind the fact that I just spent $10 on a sticker, when she snapped the cover on and said, “You need anything else? A car charger?”

“Oh. Hm. How much are those?”

“$21.99,” she said.

“No thanks.”

She shot back, “You can take it right now for $16.99.”

Two thoughts wormed their way through my brain at that point: (1) Goddammit, everything was negotiable—I was a sucker to take the first price, and (2) Seventeen bucks seemed pretty good for a car charger. (A quick check of the internet on MY PHONE would’ve told me otherwise, but I wasn’t remembering just then that I lived in THE FUTURE.)

“I’ll take it,” I told her.

She looked under the counter. They didn’t have any. She called the store, which was about 200 feet away (Do they really need a store and a kiosk in the same mall? Never enough shadiness for the shady mall, I guess.), and asked the manager if they had any in stock. They were out too. No big deal, she said. “You got a USB?” I offered that I did. She opened a package—that’s right, opened a package—that had two parts, a USB cable and the jack-thingy you stick into your car cigarette lighter. “The whole thing is $24.99, but I’ll give you this part for $12.99 and you use your own cable.” My eyes flicked over the “No Returns, Exchanges Only” sign, but I was in a buying haze, I couldn’t stop myself.

She rang me up and handed me my credit card receipt. I realized as I was walking out of the mall that I didn’t get an itemized receipt. Oh, well. Whatever.

I still had the box the phone came in, complete with USB cable, in my car, but I was out of the parking lot before I thought about trying the charger. I connected the two pieces and shoved the jack into my dashboard. On the end glowed a solid blue light, but nothing seemed to be happening. Maybe it takes a while, I thought. Nope. Over the next few car trips, the little green battery icon stayed determinedly at half mast.

So the next day I decided to return it. By then, I was no longer in Must Protect My Precious mode. I would return the charger and buy one from a legitimate business.

Different salesgirl. I gave her the story. She put the charger piece in a little something-or-other under the counter. “It works,” she said, pointing. Sure enough, the end of the jack glowed blue, but it was blinking.

“The light doesn’t do that in my car,” I said. “It’s solid. It doesn’t work. I’d like my money back.”

She gave me the whole No Returns rigamarole. I told her I wanted to speak with the manager. She sent me to the store 200 feet away.

I explained the situation to him. He told me his boss would deduct it from his paycheck if he gave me a refund. It was all I could do not to yell, “That’s a crock of shit!” I did say, “This is not a good business practice.” He responded he wasn’t the owner.

We went back and forth for a while. He encouraged me to get another case. I wanted to say, “What, so I can match my phone to my fucking manicure?” Finally, I said, “What can you do for me?”

He said they had the iPhone car chargers in stock now, he could exchange it. “How much did she charge you for this?” he said, holding up the defective jack.

I thought about the ten-dollar sticker. I thought about the trouble it was to go back to the mall. I thought about the wasted minutes debating business ethics with this schmo. And I thought about the $12.99 she charged me for the defective piece.

“$17.99,” I lied. What was he going to do? Nobody had given me an itemized receipt.

Holding up the new charger, he said, “This charger’s only $16.99. What if I give you this one and a dollar cash?”

“Fine,” I said, grabbed my stuff, and left.

So I got myself a five-dollar hardship discount on my crappy merchandise.

The lesson, children, is don’t buy shit from the kiosks in the shady mall.

Also, don’t bullshit a bullshitter; I can be shady too.