With it being the holiday season and shopping being heavily underway, I was reminded of a bit of a shopping nightmare that my mom experienced years ago, long before she trusted Amazon with most of my Christmas list.
Buckle up, this one is fun.
It was 2008. I was already knee deep into falling in love with Marvel, even though I’d only seen the first Iron Man film at the time. (The Incredible Hulk was not on my watchlist because I have a… thing… about Edward Norton, but that’s a discussion for another day.) I also had found a love of movie novelizations, enjoying rereading the films that I enjoyed on screen, but from an author’s perspective. It was always fun to see a different take.
So for that Christmas, I asked for a bunch of movie novelizations. I was careful to make note of each one, putting the author clearly on my Christmas list, as well as a picture of the book cover. The list ended up being like six pages long or something, but there were only like fifteen books. I gave my mom options, it’s a thing.
And while, yes, the list was printed out from Amazon, Mom wasn’t a fan of the site yet. So instead of just clicking and buying, she went down to our local Borders one day on her lunch break while I was at school. She brought the list with her, highlighted by order of what I considered important (I’m a book snob, sue me). And after walking around the store for a bit (she set her own hours, lucky human), she went to an employees for some help.
You see, finding those movie novelizations was, and still is honestly, rather tricky in store. You had to first know what genre they were, then the author, then pray that they were mildly popular enough to be sold. Some were, some weren’t. I wasn’t sure about these, I hadn’t checked.
Mom had just asked the employee for directions, just a general “point me in the right direction please, I’ll be fine from there.” Instead, the employee decided to personally help her, which I fully say was kind of him!
Until he proceeded to tell my mom that I didn’t know what I wanted, I’d put the wrong things on my list, and I obviously wanted these really really expensive comic omnibuses. He apparently spent several minutes convincing her, and since I wasn’t there to defend my questionable taste in books and life choices, Mom ended up listening to him and making a very expensive purchase. So expensive, in fact, that those two omnibuses ended up being the only books for me under the tree.
So Christmas morning rolls around, I camp out in front of the tree, we start passing out presents. I’m immediately clocking that there’s not a lot of “book-shaped” presents, but mom has packed multiple books in different ways before to trick me, that’s obviously the case here.
Nope, I open up an X-Men Comic Omnibus and a Batman Comic Omnibus. (Please don’t ask which ones, I do not remember.) I did my damndest to hide my disappointment, but I did a poor job of it.
Here’s the thing. I respect the comics. I support anyone who wants to read them. But I really really really don’t. I am a person who would want to collect them all if I got one. I know me. It would be a massive problem. It bothers me when I don’t have the complete collection. And comics are a very expensive hobby, especially ones that have been around for decades at this point. On top of that, I don’t read them. I prefer to watch the films and read books, but the comics do nothing for me. Again, total respect to anyone who wants to read them, they just aren’t something I want.
Mom clocked my disappointed face faster than not and called me out on it. So I was honest. Polite but honest. I thanked her profusely , but I said that I wasn’t a fan of the comics. I told her I was grateful that she’d tried to get me what I asked for and I understood that it was probably hard to find in the store.
It was here she cut me off and told me about what had happened at Borders. About how the worker had told her this was what I wanted, not the novelizations. That I’d made the mistake when I’d made my list. She was sad that I didn’t like it after she’d gone to all that trouble.
I flat out told her that I didn’t know what that worker was thinking, but I wrote down exactly what I had wanted, like I do every year. I told her that I’d already read several movie novelizations and that I’d wanted to continue, hence why they were on my list. I explained my thing about the comics. I also said I didn’t appreciate someone at a store saying that I didn’t know what I liked or didn’t, that it would have been my mistake if I had made one, but his mistake was more egregious.
The conversation actually continued for several hours, with me literally having to prove that I had wanted the novelizations over the comics (thank you Amazon). By the end of the day, mom was apologetic, and I flat out told her she had nothing to apologize for, mistakes happen and it was easily fixable.
Boxing day, we went to Borders to return the omnibuses. She gave me the receipt to make the return while she went to go do attempt number two on books for me, like a mini Christmas. When the person behind the counter asked why I was returning the books, I told them that they had been purchased in error, that an employee had convinced my mom that I didn’t know what I wanted even with a list with pictures, and that I was returning the books so that I could purchase what I would actually enjoy.
The guy looked chastised. Very chastised. Enough that the look has stayed in my mind for almost fifteen years.
He returned it without a word. Well, it was clear exactly who he was.
Mom was able to find a few of the books that were on the original list, which was more than what I had figured. I also learned a valuable lesson – take better acting lessons. Okay, no, be more grateful for the gifts I receive. I still am quite embarrassed for how I reacted to this day.
The moral of the story: when you have a list, assume that what is on the list is what the person wants, not what someone at a store says. That lesson would have saved us all a bit of grief.
And now that I have thoroughly embarrassed myself…
Until next time!
