Give It Another Twenty Years And It Will Be A Brick Again

My mother related this story to me. It happened during the early days of video players, when the cost was quite high. A customer buys a VCR, explaining to the sales assistant that it’s a gift for someone. Less than fifteen minutes later he returns to the store, explaining that he got to the car only to find his companion had bought the same thing from another store in the mall.

The carton is unopened, so the sales assistant gives him his money back and leaves the VCR at the counter to return to stock later on. Less than ten minutes later, another customer sees it and buys it.

An hour later, that customer is back to complain that there is no VCR in the box; it has been replaced with a brick. When they examine the box they find that the tape on the bottom of the carton has been cut and the box has been re-taped over the top with identical packaging tape.