I Couldn't Get No Satisfaction At Best Buy, Or: A Bundle Of Confusion, Part 3

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​I COULDN'T GET NO SATISFACTION AT BEST BUY, OR: A BUNDLE OF CONFUSION, PART 3

​...Continued from yesterday (See post from yesterday, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/i-couldnt-get-no-satisfaction-at-best-buy-or-a-bundle-of-confusion-part-2​):
​       I decided, then, that when I returned the keyboard that I didn't need to have bought,

...I would also demand...all right, I'd ask nicely...that Best Buy give me an external disc reader to compensate for the internal disc reader missing from the computer I'd been sold.
      I only needed to decide what to do first: Should I ask for the free disc reader first or return the keyboard first? Return the keyboard first, I reckoned, as that would be the simpler of the two matters at hand. Or so I thought.
         The greeter at the door of Best Buy directed me to the checkout counter to return my keyboard. I felt a surge of relief when I saw that the checkout was manned - womaned, that is - by a sales adult, a mature lady who  who looked to be only a couple of decades younger than myself. I waited in line; however, when my turn came with the sales adult, she informed me that returns were handled at that desk, and pointed to a nearby counter manned - childed, that is - by...a sales kid!    
         "Anything wrong with the keyboard?" the friendly sales return kid asked me. 
         I proceeded to explain to him that I didn't know if anything was wrong with the keyboard because I didn't open it because I didn't need  it because the computer I bought came with a keyboard even though I was told that that I needed to buy another keyboard. So I bought the keyboard and now I was returning it.
          "Cool," replied the good-natured kid after listening to my indignant soliloquy. "This'll save you some money."
            Don't say  it, admonished my better angels, he's just a child.
            My sales child began the return process. "$39.99 off your credit card," he said.
            "That's fine," I said coolly.
            "Oh, wait a minute," he said. "Now it's saying $19.99. Let me try it again."
            He tried it again, again to have the price ring up as $39.99, only to have the computer declare that only $19.99 could be taken off my credit card bill.  
            He tried one more time then scratched his head in confusion. "It says something about bundling," he said. "I don't get it. Wait a minute. I'll be right back."
          My sales return kid was gone for more than a minute. In fact, he was gone for quite a few minutes, during which time I occasionally looked longingly over at the sales adult running the checkout counter, wishing she would notice me standing here so alone and forlorn, and come over and knock out this problem, adult-style.
           Not that nobody noticed me standing there. Another cheery sales kid came up to the unmanned - unkidded - sales return desk and asked me if I'd been helped. No, I thought, but "Yes," I said. A little later yet another equally cheery kid came up to the desk and asked me the same question, to which I gave the same reply.
            Eventually my sales kid returned with some help, a sales young adult who, after much cogitating over the problem of why the computer only wanted to refund $19.99 of the $39.99 it owed me, ran off to look for more help. (I prayed he wouldn't return with the older guy who told me that the disc tray on my computer would open after I got it home. See post from 6/29/2023,  https://www.ailantha.com/blog/i-couldnt-get-no-satisfaction-at-best-buy-or-a-bundle-of-confusion-part-1).​
​             The sales young adult returned with a second sales young adult and the two of them studied my sales receipt, pow-wowing about how to make my $39.99 refund square with the $19.99 that the bundling apparatus was insisting upon.
​            When I couldn't stand it any longer I said,  "Can't you just forget about the bundling and give me back  my $39.99?"
             No, they couldn't. That was not within the realm of possibility. 
             But then one of the young adults had a Eureka! moment wherein the Gordian knot of the problem was suddenly unloosed and he now understood why the computer was standing its ground on my refund. As he explained it, the keyboard I bought had been part of the bundle deal which resulted in my receiving a discount on the whole of my purchases. Returning one of the bundled items apparently cancelled out the $20 off I'd gotten on the $1000 I spent. So now I had to pay back the $20. Which meant I was only entitled to $19.99 on my return of the $39.99 keyboard. Or something like that.
            Victorious, the young adults handed me my receipt for a return of $19.99, which I stared at in befuddled confusion while they hurried off to I know not where to do I know not what. I looked up at the sales return kid, who asked me if he could help me with anything else. He looked as if he hoped with all his young soul that he wouldn't have to help me with anything else. But he needn't have worried. I was a broken, defeated woman. 
            I left the store resigned that I would accept my defeat and just buy a danged $20 external disc reader. But not from Best Buy.