Richard Hearn’s expensive purchase

How much is an empty box? I’ll tell you. £60. OK, not really. But today I did buy an empty box for £60. I realised just in time and got my money back (who wouldn’t?) but it was a close run thing.

I had gone into a shop called– let’s protect them a little bit– Detective Universe, and was getting a portable DVD player for our upcoming holiday (and therefore long car journey). The box, surely a display box, I took to the till. Now Youngest™ and The Boy were with me too (I blame them) as although it was a cold day, they’d been running around the shop, so as well as this box I was carrying two coats, a scarf and a hat. This is relevant. It confused the weight-judging area of my brain. You might almost say I was ‘distracted’. The sales assistant scanned the box and put it in the bag, I went outside, think ‘this is an empty box’, go back in the shop and say: “Have i just bought an empty box?”

The sales assistant isn’t sure, so he checks with three members of staff who walk from terminal to terminal to check against God knows what. Then when he comes back he reveals that it was his mistake, yes, it was a display box, but they have none in stock, and… this is the good bit… I would have to queue up at a different till to get my refund.

Now, often I would get quite stressed, irate. Ever seen the film Falling Down? That kind of thing. However, this seemed so ludicrous, I merrily queued up ready to share the comedy. Except the next sales assistant had to disappear off again to ‘check’ and I thought, hang on, it’s going to be those same three blokes again…

(Meanwhile, someone else queuing up at the helpdesk has unfolded a bit of paper with that over-scribbled, heavy-lined writing of someone doodling angrily while being kept on hold a long time. The shop’s name is jaggedly scrawled about 20 times over.) I’ve just got the word count to recall a story from my past: the moment I bought a dishwasher. I stood next to it, the assistant wrote down the model number, took the piece of paper to the front desk, I paid for it, then I waited 20 minutes until they wheeled out a washing machine. They were then insisting that was what I’d gone for, and expecting me to accept it.

Back to the present. They refund my money and I drive half a mile down the road and buy a box with something inside it.

Illustration: Paul Lewis www.pointlessrhino.com