Trust Issues

The glass on my oven door is broken. I need to replace the door but on calling around, no repair man could supply the door for the model of that oven.  The last serviceman was helpful, pointing me in the direction of a man who sells old oven parts – kind of a woman’s dream of Pick-U-Parts.  Instead I bought a new stove and paid for it on my Sears Master Card.

The next day I thought better of the payment plan, seeing that it would come due when I was not here. I slipped into the Sears Appliance Store yesterday to pay off my card. But the clerk couldn’t do that without my card which is a minor one to me and I had left it at home. Apparently the Sear’s Mastercard Account is not attached to my name in the computer but is owned by someone else and the clerk couldn’t access it for payment. Fine, I said. You keep the cheque and I will go home and phone you later this evening with the information you need. The clerk was reticent, issues of trust he said.

I looked around. The store was empty except for another salesman and a woman sitting at a computer, looking as though she weren’t listening in. I said fine, just tell me which of the three of you is the most trustworthy and I will give that person the cheque. No, no, he said, it is not exactly that.

“I don’t want to come back and I am trying to think of a way not to return,” I said.

The woman piped up, quietly. “Do you have electronic banking?”

“Actually, I do and my Sears card is attached to it. I can pay that way. Thank you. And ... you have answered another question that might arise and that would be, who is the smartest among the four us?”

The men blustered.

She laughed.

I left.

Arta