All Returns Final
There is something to be said for excellence at one’s craft, regardless of what that craft is. Centuries ago, blacksmiths would compete, claiming their swords could cut down the divine. Even today, there are countless awards and guides to the best in art and science. Who was the Best Actor? Who found the most interesting discovery in chemistry?
Who fills a bowl of ramen so transcendent it helps you touch something ineffable, strange, and potentially terrifying?
However, not all who pursue excellence do so in such lofty territory. They content themselves with knowledge of their aerete and leave the seeking of fame to others.
In a Staples store in Studio City, a small neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, lived such a person. Alma, the assistant manager of Staples (weekend shift), was the greatest person in the world at returning things.
She had yet to find anything she could not help a customer return from her shipping and returns desk in the front right corner of the Staples. Package FedEx or Amazon return only? Easy; the drivers all talk to each other. It’s not that challenging to get something into the system and passed along. Store doesn’t accept shipped returns? Yes, they do; they just don’t want you to know about it. Final sale only?
Baby, that’s just code for “Unless you send us the right form”.
Alma developed this skill during the COVID-19 pandemic. Recently broke up with and alone in her apartment; she salved her lonely soul with impulse purchases. Clothes for adventures she couldn’t yet take. Board games she had no one to play with. Cooking utensils for projects she’d never start.
They piled up, and her credit rating (always so pristine) was straining under the weight. One morning, she woke up and realized she didn’t care about that her ex-boyfriend at all. She didn’t care about his cheating, his laziness, or even his smile. She only found it objectively charming, in the same way a dispassionate biologist might find a polar bear cub objectively cute with a dangerous and protective mother standing over it.
So she set about returning everything she had purchased to band-aid her lonely heart. The most recent were easy – well within the return window. As she progressed, things became more challenging. Missed return windows, in-store only options, and used items. But she needed to tear off all the band-aid, so she persisted. When she finished, the vaccine had been released to the general public, and she found new, soft, sensitive tissue on her heart instead of a gaping wound.
Recognizing her new calling, she quit her job as an advertising graphic designer and looked for a place to practice her new vocation. In the end, she found the Staples in Studio City, and there her legend grew.
It was a small legend, but it was her legend, and it made her happy for a time. But eventually, like Alexander, she found there were no more worlds left to conquer. She needed a challenge, so she put the word out among the delivery drivers.
Delivery drivers are some of the most powerful people in any city. They have keys to every building and know every route and road. Even ones the government leaves off the map in the interests of public safety. They all speak to each other. Sometimes in bars after a long shift, other times in the flash of headlines and the execution of right turns. They knew of Alma’s legend and respected her for it.
So one day a coffin-sized box was delivered to the Staples loading dock. The driver, a veteran with only a few years left in his tour, would only let Alma sign for it. She did and brought it to the returns’ desk to open. Inside, she found a man finishing a sandwich. According to the bill of lading, his name was Colin.
“How did I get here?” Colin asked.
“You were delivered. I asked for something challenging to return. Perhaps you’re my challenge?”
“Aha!” cried Colin as he pulled himself out of the box. “Yes, I was just telling my UPS driver this morning I had something impossible I wanted to return. He must have gotten me to you, although I’m not sure how he got me in the box.”
“Delivery drivers have their ways,” Alma said, although she didn’t know either and hoped the answer wasn’t chloroform. “What do you want me to return?”
“Can you do exchanges?”
“Yes. An exchange is just a return with a new order. That’s not I challenge”
“What if I said I wanted to exchange my life.”
“I’m sorry, did you say you want to exchange your wife?”
“No, my life. Although exchanging my wife is likely part of it, yes.”
“So you want to be a wholly different person?”
Colin shook his head violently. “No, no, no. Not at ALL. I wish to be me, but I would like to have made different choices. I hope to return the life I have and exchange it for another one. One where I studied law instead of accounting. One where I didn’t marry my wife but married my college girlfriend instead. One where -”
Alma stopped him with a hand. “I think it will be more efficient if you write out all the changes and leave them with your phone number.”
Colin scribbled his changes and his phone number on a printed out piece of receipt paper and left the store to catch a bus. Alma took the paper home with her.
“Tricky,” she mused as she paced her spare, minimalist apartment. “Very tricky.” It was not the first time she’d returned something insubstantial. She’d returned a childhood dream for teenagers who had outgrown them. She’d returned the feelings of lingering crushes for people who had discovered their intended as not who they thought they were. She’d smiled sadly as she explained to a crying parent that returning death, or even cancer, was beyond even her abilities.
But a life? That was technically possible. Just… complex.
She spent a full week on it, coasting through work on the barest of focus. Her mind was awash with forms, packaging, the routes of delivery drivers, and secret phrases you can say to customer service.
At the end of the week, she called Colin. He returned to the Staples in Studio City (this time in his own car), and Alma got to work.
She filled out forms and placed phone calls to the city registrar, the gym, his alma mater, and the hospital where he was born. Then, she started wrapping up pieces of his life and sticking them in a bin to be picked up by the delivery drivers.
His marriage, along with his wedding ring, went into a small box carefully padded with packing peanuts that buried his relationship in the fog of forgetting.
His career choice, along with his diploma and work ID, were removed from the frames that kept them static and slid into padded envelopes for return to his professors.
His lazy refusal to work out, along with his body. That was last, and that was longest. Each piece had to be wrapped and placed in an individual box, each holding sculpted foam lining just for that piece and no other.
When she finished, no one stood in front of her at all. Just a giant pile of packages ready to be returned in a bin. She wheeled it to the loading dock, where the veteran delivery driver was waiting. He took the packages, then prepared the forms and bills of lading for her to sign. One by one, Alma signed them, and one by one, they vanished into the truck. When she signed the last form, the driver closed the door, hopped in his cab, and his truck vanished into LA traffic.
When Alma returned to her kiosk in the front right corner of the Staples, she found Colin standing there. He wore a nicer suit and was in better shape. He had no wedding ring on his finger, but the indentation and tan line of one who just took it off.
“May I help you, sir?” Alma asked.
“Yes,” Colin said. “Do you have any office couches that are comfortable to sleep on? I’m afraid my wife is divorcing me, and I may need to sleep at the office for a few months.”
“Of course, sir, right this way,” Alma said. As she walked into the aisle, Colin stopped to pick something up. He held the receipt out to her. “I think someone dropped this. That’s funny! He had the same name as I do. What was he returning?”
Alma took the receipt. “Exactly what he asked to return, sir.”
“We should try and get him that receipt. I know I always feel like I want to exchange things. My whole life, even!”
Alma smiled and folded it up neatly before slipping it into her jeans pocket. “I don’t think he’ll know to need it,” she said.
Disclaimer
Featured image is courtesy of an unknown photographer of the Staples of Benslam, PA. This is a work of fiction, and has no legal connection to Staples, who, as far as I am aware, are unable to return metaphysical concepts, or even FedEx packages.