With Any Luck, He’s Gone For Good

At the electronics retailer where I work, we have this customer that we call Mr. Driving Gloves because… well… he always wears tacky driving gloves.

Our return policy is a strict thirty days. Mr. Gloves comes in once a month, buys north of $300 in random stuff, then returns all of it on day twenty-nine. He always claims that it is all “defective.” He will literally buy three boom boxes at once plus fifty random little things and just return them all. It is messing with our inventory and commissions badly enough that our manager has instructed us to never sell him anything again.

Mr. Driving Gloves comes in for his last time and returns everything. I am obligated to accept this return, and he begins walking around the store piling random things on the counter for roughly forty-five minutes. I am particularly annoyed with his shenanigans, so I let him finish before breaking the news. He comes to ring out and, with a big smile, I explain that because he is screwing up our inventory and commissions, we are never selling him anything again.

Of course, he argues that all those things were defective, and I reply that defects happen but not to everything you buy. I make it clear that we are not budging.

I’ll never forget his final words.

“I HOPE YOU HAVE A LOT OF LUCK IN LIFE ‘CAUSE YOU’RE GONNA NEED IT!”

Maybe he jinxed it. Ten years later, I have had a lot of luck in life. I have a beautiful wife, a wonderful toddler, and a career with a government agency, and we just bought our first house! Thank you, Mr. Driving Gloves!