Walgreens Wild Goose Chase
A couple of weeks ago I was running some errands with my son in town. During these errands, there was a very real opportunity for me to have, what we call in my family, a ‘Frye’fit. What is a ‘Frye’fit you ask? Well, it could be classified as a freakout, blown lid, or simply, an outburst of aggravation. Before we begin our story, let me lay out a few details for you to know…
1. My son joined me on these errands.
2. He’s four and weighs fifty pounds. He’s solid.
3. When in a car, he sits in a car seat.
4. Getting him out of his car seat is like lifting a fifty-pound bag of cement.
5. Together, we had one errand to run.
The one errand was to go to our local Walgreens, pick up our family Christmas cards, and pick up my daughter from school. Should be super simple...but no.
We roll up to the Walgreens, park close to the front, and get out the truck. I unload my son from his car seat, we walk inside and head to the photo counter. The wait wasn’t long. There was one person in front of us, so we stood and waited. When it was time for us to be assisted, the guy behind the counter asked what we needed. I told him our name, what we were here to get, and he began looking.
He looked.
He looked some more.
He scratched his bald head and kept looking.
After a few minutes, he asked if I got a confirmation email. I said I did. He asked for help from his associate. They looked again to no avail. The guy behind the counter asked if I sent the order to this location or the other location in my town.
This was news to me. There was another Walgreens in my town? Gosh, I didn’t even think about that.
So, he sent us to the Walgreens across town.
We exited the store, walked to the truck, and I loaded my fifty-pound son back into his car seat. As I was strapping my son in his seat, an elderly man pulled up next to us and parked. When he opened his door to exit his vehicle, his door met my vehicle with a loud bang.
I looked up. My son looked at me and said, “He just hit your car”.
The old man looked at me. We made eye contact. Then he turned, hobbled away into the Walgreens entrance. I went to assess the damage, there was a tiny, microscopic ding on my truck. Thankfully, that guy and my truck have something in common: they’re old. If I would have been driving a new vehicle, I can’t promise that the old man would have been able to hobble away as easily as he did.
After a five minute hop, skip and two red lights later, my son and I arrived at the Walgreen’s that I could have sworn was a CVS on the other side of town. I take my son out of the car seat, hold his hand, and together we walk into the ‘new’ Walgreens.
We walked up to the counter, asked for our Christmas cards, and (to my surprise) the lady said they had them! Not only did they have them, but the lady also said she did the Frye Christmas cards herself! Man, things were looking up.
She handed me the box and immediately I knew that this wasn’t the correct order. The name on the box was not my name or my wife’s name or anyone’s name that I even knew. Great, just great.
I told the associate the news and she and another nice lady began looking for our order. Guess what? It wasn’t there. Despite them not knowing anything about my order, they were able to help me determine one thing: my order was correctly sent to the first Walgreens location that I had stopped at earlier.
I was on the verge of a ‘Frye’fit.
With this new information, I loaded my fifty-pound son back into his car seat, turned the key to my truck, and made my way back to the first Walgreens. Only this time, I had a few other ‘things’ to take care of.
First, I was going to inform that elderly man that he hit my truck. Yeah, I was going to inform him that he could apologize instead of just pretending that it never happened. And second, I hoped that bald-headed photo associate was still behind the counter. I was going to let him know just how wrong he was sending me across town to pick up an order that was right there in front of his face.
Boy, I was hot.
We arrived at the original, what I thought was the only, Walgreens. The old man’s car was gone. Lucky him. I took my son out of his car seat for the fifth time, walked in with a purpose, and stopped in front of the photo counter like a dump truck ready to unload a full shipment of ‘Frye’fit on that bald-headed guy who sent me on this wild goose chase for some Christmas cards.
He wasn’t there either.
Instead, there was a very nice lady who greeted me with a smile and asked how she could assist me. I told her that I was here for some Christmas cards that were definitely not at the location across town. She began to look around.
She looked.
She looked some more.
Then, finally, she found them.
For some reason, the cards had been laid down away from the completed orders and left there unattended. The cards weren’t even ready. The associate helping me apologized, cleaned the cards, and boxed them up for me to take.
She was very helpful.
I paid the fee, walked my son out to the truck, and loaded him up yet again. We headed to the daycare to get his sister. What should have been one, uneventful errand turned into a thirty-minute scavenger hunt. And yeah, I got frustrated. I think most people would. And yeah, there were a few minutes during that tale that I really wanted to unload on that elderly guy that hit my truck and let that bald-headed guy have it about his ability to help his customers.
In the long-run, I’m glad that I didn’t have that chance. What would that have helped? Would it have made me feel better? Maybe. Would I have upset those two individuals? For sure. And let’s face it, the elderly guy didn’t mean to hit my door, although he definitely should have apologized. The guy behind the counter didn’t purposely send me on some wild goose chase around town...at least I hope he didn’t. He was most likely just trying to help someone that seemed to be confused about their order.
And honestly, had I just checked my email while at the first store I could have told them that my order wasn’t across town. Funny thing is, I’m headed back to Walgreens today to pick up more photo orders. I’ll keep you posted on any adventures that come of it.
Keep your cool today. Don’t yell at old men who hit your car and then pretend as if nothing happened. And remember: store associates are really just trying to help...most of them at least.