Charm Bracelets

Charm bracelets.
Every girl wants one, especially if they have never had one.
Puppy dogs and kittens, ballet slippers & music notes, footballs and years, Statues of Liberty & Leaning Towers, airplanes & trains, lucky clovers & Italian stallions, hearts. peace signs & flowers.
No two charm bracelets alike... like no two girls are quite alike. A reflection of experiences, desires, dreams, past times & times past or yet to come.
I never had a charm bracelet & thought it would be a good idea to get all my nieces one along with two charms for Christmas several years ago. Making my purchase at a large, national retailer I inquired about warranties and was told 'one year: replace or repair if you retain the receipt.'
Four months later, I took two of my nieces & a broken charm bracelet back to the retailer along with my receipt. The girl at the counter said that there was nothing they could do. She happened to be the same exact person who sold me the bracelets and charms. Reminding her of that and still denied, I asked for the department manager. Yet, again I was told that there was nothing that could be done, as they no longer did repairs and the bracelets were over thirty days old.
I asked to speak to the store manager.
He repeated the same thing.
Hmmmm.....
After spending entirely too much time discussing the ins and outs of them changing their company policy, I finally asked the store manager if they accepted returns from other locations.
He said, ' Yes for any reason at all ... as long as they are within thirty days & accompanied with a receipt.'
'Oh, Ok. Great. Thanks for your time... C'mon Girls.'
Off we went, six skinny legs in long stride.
We went into the far-side location of this national retailers and picked up a replacement charm bracelet. Then we went on a glorious little shopping spree. Picking out & up anything and everything that three young ladies could ever want & never really need. When our buggy was full, we smooshed the stuff down. When it got full again, we took out a ten dollar item and replaced it with a similar sized fifty dollar item. We giggled and laughed all the way to the counter.
Cha-Ching, Cha-ching, Cha-ching...the wonderful sound of profits for the far-side retailer.
Cha-ching...the short-term sound of the power of plastic.
Back at the truck, we loaded the bed up and then sat on the tail-gate and opened one package... a silver charm bracelet. The broken one got dropped back into the package provided by the far-side and new one got placed on the wrist....
Thirty minutes later...
'Ma'am, are you returning all these items?'
'Yes'am.'
'Goodness. What's the matter with it all?'
'Oh, we just bought too much. I was told by your manager we could return everything for any reason as long as it was within 30 days and I had the receipt.' Passing her the receipt,'Most of it hasn't even been taken out of the bag.'
'Oh, Ok.'
The final Cha-Ching of the day. With credit in hand...'Oh, tell your manager that the charm bracelet is broken.'

footnote: Yes, I could have just eaten the thirty bucks and just replaced the girls bracelet, but it was the principle. In between my personal spending & corporate spending, they had made about a hundred bucks a week off of me for years and possibly years to come. When this retailers changed their policy, they were no longer honoring their word. In their world, words are worthless but money is not. Words should never be worthless.
Smart Cars Incorporated aka Smartcarsinc.net have proven their word to be worthless. But words are never really worthless.