By Cheryl Ryan
Once again, I find myself worried about how easy it is to think of things that bother me (see Pet Peeves Part I). But it is easy, so here we go:
I’ll start with TSA! Ugh. There must be a better way to stop terrorists than molesting people. Since I’ve had surgery, I get patted down regularly when traveling. If I go through the old-style machines, they often need to do a full-body search. Sometimes they ask whether I want to go into a private room for my search. Umm, no. I don’t want to go into an isolated room for a full-body search, thank you very much. Let’s do this in broad daylight, shall we?
Until I’ve had to be in the pat-down crowd, I didn’t understand how disturbing it all was. It’s pretty crazy. I’ve witnessed some exceptionally violating pat-downs of poor, unsuspecting travelers. One experience, in particular, was when a young woman inadvertently wore a sweater with metallic stitching. Watching that search was cringeworthy. I can’t help but question the wisdom of hassling seniors and people with surgeries as the best possible way to protect our airways.
Another recent peeve is when movie theaters charge a hefty admission and proceed to play twenty minutes of ads before the movie begins. Isn’t that called network TV? This doesn’t bother my husband in the same way. What do you think? Or am I just being exceptionally peevish, again?
Online returns
And lastly, it hasn’t been easy to find merchandise in stores, so my online order game is way up. But why is it so hard to make online returns when buying from some companies? I’m looking at you, Zara. In all fairness to Zara, I didn’t look up their return policy before ordering but they are the reason that I look up return policies now. After three store visits and never finding fewer than 20 people in the return-only line, I finally gave up trying to return a pair of pants. I won’t be ordering from them online again, but I can’t say that I won’t sneak back into the store to try things on because they do have some really cute shirts.
Even when I check return policies before ordering it can be a challenge. Each company has a different return policy. For example, I recently ordered a rug from McGee & Co., which looked to accept returns, but in the small print it states that the consumer will pay shipping return costs. I missed that bit and found the shipping costs are more than the cost of the rug. So if anyone is looking for a hallway runner, I have one that’s half off.
If you have any online return tips or tricks I’m here for it!
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