The New Year for us brings many things. For starters, it’s a reminder that another year has come and gone and our cribbage board pegs are as ridiculous as ever and in need of replacing.
We stopped at two Dollar stores to find a replacement board but in both cases, no one on staff had heard of cribbage but happily directed me to the greeting cards when I asked if they carried playing cards and maybe even thought I had asked for cabbage when they tried to show me some felt lettuce.
I knew Wal-Mart would have what I needed, I just wasn’t sure if I wanted to venture in, to deal with the post-holiday-customer-return lines but realized there’s probably nothing more important for 2014 than playing cribbage.
I found the replacement board easily in the toy aisle, amongst an array of playing cards, perhaps I was not going to be disappointed with my Wal-Mart experience. Oh, wait, I spoke too soon.
I waited in the 20 items or less line for 200 minutes with my one and only item and happily handed it to the cashier who scanned it and looked at her screen. She had a look of fear, distress and scanned the cribbage board again. I looked for any signal I could find that would tell me if she was charging me twice having scanned it twice but couldn’t see anything other than a rubberized pen I knew I would be forced to use like an etch-a-sketch to trace my name in just a moment.
She scanned a third time and then picked up the emergency phone hidden under her till and smiled over my shoulder saying nothing of my cribbage playing or the possibility I might play the claw game on my way out the door.
We waited for a manager while she cashed two other customers out ahead of me, almost as though my shameful purchase had made us both invisible.
When the manager whose name tag read only “Pigeon” approached, she scanned the board and stared blankly at the screen as had her co-worker. She scanned a second time (if they tell me I owe them anything more than $6.22 I am going to throw the biggest fit this store has ever seen….wait, that would be impossible).
Pigeon to cashier with their backs to me: That’s Corporate’s fault, that’s not our jurisdiction.
Cashier facing me: We can’t sell you this.
Me: Pigeon! Turn around! Wait!
Cashier: We can’t sell you this because it’s not in our system.
(I was waiting for her to mention jurisdiction but she never did)
Me: But it’s on your shelves and there’s a price, it’s $6.22.
Cashier: It’s not registered here. Don’t worry, I will pull (I think she said, “As God as my witness!” first) each and every one of these (looking at the box totally puzzled by what it was) off the shelves. (Long pause) I’ve done it before!
Is that supposed to make me feel better? She said it like she was a hero, saving a kitten stuck in a tree. It’s cribbage and it’s $6.22 and I know she hasn’t pulled them off the shelves before because this was her first time ever trying to sell one. I’m pretty sure she thought it might have been birth control which is probably only half right.
Greg waited for me in the parking lot with the kids because we are helpless against our addiction. He wondered why I wasn’t carrying a bag and why I looked like I wanted to strangle someone. I bet he was also wondering if I had tried and lost at the claw game.
