From The Past March 2, 2006

Kevin and I went to Wal-Mart and purchased a bag of men’s white undershirts. They were $12 for five shirts. We brought them in the house, left them on the bed and went to Lexington for the day.

When we got home last night with all of our purchases, we laid everything out on the bed and began the process of clipping off price tags, hanging things on hangers, and so on. One of the last things I did was open the bag of undershirts we had bought that morning.

They were folded together, so I pulled the shirt from the back out first. I was puzzled because on the front of the shirt was an orange football helmet. I thought maybe the company had thrown in a “special, bonus” shirt until I saw the size – it was much smaller than the others Kevin had bought. I asked him about it and we both looked at the bag again to make sure he had picked up the right size and type of shirt.

It turned out the BAG was okay, but the contents were not. As I began pulling more t-shirts apart, I noticed they were a dingy yellow. They were also all different sizes. Then it came to us: someone had taken their old, dirty, used t-shirts, put them in that bag and returned them to Wal-Mart. I guarantee you Wal-Mart gave them $12 too!

Kevin took the shirts and receipt back to the store. I never thought they would have believed him, but to their credit, they did and they gave him no trouble at all in exchanging them.