Lilly-Bully

So there I was (again) yesterday, surrounded by color and smiles in the mall’s Lilly Pulitzer store. I was breezing through the clothes and trinkets, leisurely searching for a gift and enjoying the upbeat atmosphere. Suddenly, my happy bubble was pierced by an angry sounding voice. I looked up and realized it was coming from a well dressed woman with two kids by her side all standing at the counter.

“What do you mean you won’t give me a full refund?” she bellowed “My mother in law gave me this as a gift this past Mother’s Day!”

The Lilly employee apologized but explained that full refunds could not be issued on items purchased over 90 days ago, and that this item had a gift receipt from back in November.

(Black Friday sale anyone?)

🤫 Shhhh…

“I don’t care when she bought it!” the woman raged, raising her voice even higher “I didn’t get this over-priced, ugly thing until Mother’s Day and that’s all that should matter! This sure is a lousy way to treat your customers, this is totally unacceptable!”

Again, the poor sales clerk re-iterated the store’s return policy and apologized to the woman who was having none of it.

The verbal lashing continued.

At this point, I decided to cut my browsing short, grab a gift card and scram. I was happy to get outta there…not so much because I was afraid of the nasty lady, but because the employees were so clearly embarrassed. I felt terrible for them having to deal with the sustained harassment in front of so many customers. Interestingly, this woman’s kids, who looked to be about 6 and 9, continued to stand motionless right at their mother’s side, completely unfazed..maybe this wasn’t unusual behavior.

I get why the lady was annoyed..don’t you?

But for real, why are people so “gloves off” these days? It’s like we’re extra loud, extra mean, extra impatient, extra demanding and just “extra” all around. One minute we’re all about anti-bullying and the next minute it’s Pamplona pretty much everywhere you go.. (Have you driven on a freeway lately??)

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All I know is I didn’t escape from 2020 just to turn around and impose a bad attitude on others- no freaking way. I saw this morning in the news that the MRNA vaccines could possibly give people Covid immunity for a lifetime.. Surely our gratitude can last longer than a few months.