Gimme a Little Credit!

    Twice a year I take the time to clear out my nightstand.  It’s always that thing on my ‘to do’ list that never seems to get crossed off.  It can be the most opportune time-kids at school, torrential rain storm outside, and just lazy enough not to care if none of my other errands are held off until I finish watching the movie Shallow Hal...again.  

    The drawers are stuffed with journals, business cards, and spiral notebooks where some story ideas have started…but not continued.  Buried deep underneath is an envelope that I’ve named ‘Dead Credits.’ 

    Each year I cringe as I rediscover the envelope stuffed with presents from family and friends.  Varied celebratory gifts from past holidays, from Secret Santa's at work, even some gift certificates from when I had Joycee.  It’s already been four years.  Some of these credits and ‘gift certificates’ had been received way before the world of ‘valid for six months or valid for one year,’ ever came to be.  Credit slips used to be to the advantage of the store-if you lost or misplaced it,  your credit was gone.    

    I on the other hand am this store policy’s worst nightmare.  In my dead collection are credits that date back to 1999, the year I was married.  Can I walk into a store 14 years later expecting them to honor my credit?  Or is the real question-do I have the NERVE to pull out the credit?

  “How long are these credits good?  I still have some gift certificates at home that I haven’t used.”  I asked after returning some things that I receive duplicates of after giving birth to Joycee in 2007.

“Credits from returns have a one year standing.  Gift certificates on the other hand are good for as long as you have them.  There is no expiration date on gift certificates.”  At the time the chipper and congratulatory clerk smiled.

   I only wished this particular store owner remembered her words when I came walking in four years later. 

  “We can no longer honor these.”  She said wafting past me, like I was a bad smell, and on to the next PAYING customer.  

 

   “It doesn’t say anywhere on the gift.”  I say. 

   “I’m sorry, we have no records to prove it.”  She said.   Somehow I don’t think that her answer would fly if it had been the IRS at her register, as opposed to me in my ripped jeans and un-manicured nails.

    I would understand,   I really could understand, if there were some proof of fairness.   For example, ‘Credits’ were from my own doing, my laziness to follow up on something.  GIFT certificates are a result of other people’s kindness.  Were the store keepers as kind to notify the purchaser that the gift was not used?  Were my generous friends and family given a credit or money back?  NO.  I don’t think so.

    I was two days late to cash in on my gift of a pedicure.  I wasn’t as forth coming with it as I had been with the baby gifts.  I mean what’s two days compared to four years.  With my feet in the water and the tiny, pale, Asian woman massaging at my stubbly legs, my heart began to pound.  With each nail buffed and shiny, we were almost at ‘this little piggy went wee wee all the way home’ when I cleared my throat. 

   “You pay now.”  She said in a bow.

   I slowly filed through my ‘dead credit’ pile handing off the expired certificate like it was a fake i.d. and I was 19 again trying to get into a club.

   She slowly made her way towards the register, speaking in mixed tongues.  But every time there was a heavy accent on ‘Niu’ the last word of each sentence, I knew she was referring to the cow with the pruned toes (and expired credit) in chair number three.  She didn’t address anything to me in English. 

   She came back and silently painted my toes in sloppy, heavy blobs of polish.  I think she did a fourth coat just to guarantee that I smudged a big toe on the way back to my car.  The credit was honored, I was not.

   So here I am at present moment.  Holding back on cleaning out my drawer out of fear that I will find someone’s kind gesture crumpled in between the pages of a spiral notebook or stuck to a lollipop stick that Joycee has discarded.  Today I found a check made out to ‘Prince Alan Chabbott’ for 75 dollars.  Alan will be eight this year.  

   Before I consider making a deposit via ATM machine I think of my cousin's face looking at his current bank statement mumbling, "you've gotta be freakin kidding me."  No. I'll take the high road on this one.

   Back into the overstuffed legal envelope, another present turned souvenir.  My heart hurts, but my dignity will remain intact.   With my cruddy polished feet and a children’s store I vow never to give my business again, I take the remaining mementos and place them back into my nightstand.  I dream of the day that someone slips and actually admits the credits are still good, that’s why I hold the envelope.

   I hold it, and hide it till next year, hoping to revive the dream.

  To date the dead pile consists of $679.66 in unused, unhonored credits.