Brian’s Annoyances

For our anniversary I got my lovely wife a pearl necklace. I knew she preferred short necklaces so I got the shortest length they had, 16 inches. Turns out she wanted a choker. With a good return/exchange policy in hand, I went back asking for a shorter one, and was told they didn’t have anything shorter at the moment but I should call back in a few weeks when they got their next delivery of pearls.

More than a few phone calls back and they never seem to actually receieve necklaces shorter than 16 inches. Today I went in to make what I thought was a reasonable request. I pay for a 16 inch necklace and they shorten it to the desired length. Now, this store has full time in-store jewelers. They offer free restringing of pearls necklaces purchased through them (which oddly they recommend every 2-3 years (this is the same establishment that suggests letting them check your jewelery every six months for maintenance.)) So I really thought that this wasn’t an unreasonable thing to ask.

At first they attempted to argue that that wouldn’t be fair that I would be throwing away those two inches (not that they offered a discount). They briefly attempted to argue that I would need to buy a more expensive strand (the words they were spewing forth for this one didn’t make the least bit of sense to me). I even offered to pay for the restringing, they weren’t concerned about that. Why than did it take them 20 minutes to agree to do the thing that I asked for in the first place?