The Point of the Return

Post-Christmas-sales, post-end-of-year-sales, post beginning of-of-year-sales one can suffer from sales fatigue or plain ol’ confusion of purchases. While returning items, especially at sales times, can be a hard and arduous task. You have to produce 100 points of evidence that you actually purchased the item, this including a thumbprint and your great-grandmother’s maiden name. It also has to be within the time frame of minus 24 hrs and you still have to come up with some strangely suitable excuse why you changed your mind. I break out in a sweat of guilt every time I return something, feeling slightly incompetent that I couldn’t make the right decision to start with, ‘how hard can it be, how can you fail in your judgment of a white T-shirt?’ Maybe it’s just genetic Protestant guilt rearing its ugly head or maybe it’s the queasy feeling of hassling the sales staff, but when returning stuff I always feel as if I’ve borrowed my friend’s favorite item and damaged it, beyond repair.

But for all these slightly anxious ridden returns I have endured through my history of shopping, there is also the antidote that operates under the name of IKEA. Unparalleled in its eagerness for a return, it is the Mecca of Returns, the ultimate meaning of the word Return. I would even go as far as betting my cat’s head that when the English language was in its infancy, men were pondering long and hard if the word for taking things back that you had purchased and for some reason didn’t want any longer, should go under the name IKEA or Return.

Sometimes I have an itch to just buy something at IKEA so I can return it. I know, sick, but true. But I feel I’m making someone happy. And it’s not me (well it is but I’m happy to make someone else happy). Returning your Hejka rocking chair because it clashed with the Kramfors sofa and the Liatorp table is a pure joy. When you show up with your item to return you almost have a feeling that you are giving someone a gift, a very special gift. No questions asked, just hand over the receipt and the box. And if you don’t have the receipt? Don’t stress, there is a special little line with tickets just for you. Now, that’s considerate. No guilt, no explanation, no sweaty palms. I just lift my gaze up to that happy little heart pillow that tells me: ‘It’s OK to change your mind’. It fills me with warm fuzzy feelings, I feel like hugging someone, a pillow, an IKEA staff member or perhaps the person next to me that is queuing up for the bits-missing-give-me-a-new-one-sorry-we’re-temporarily-out-of-stock-desk.