Day 27

[from A Thousand Miles to San Francisco]

After dinner, Samantha sat down on the sofa to relax and watch some TV. Not five minutes later, her phone began to ring. With a sigh, Samantha muted the TV - it was a repeat, so she wasn't missing anything - and answered. "Hello?"

"Hey Sam, it's me." The voice on the other end belonged to her best friend, Dawn. They had met in high school, and had remained friends after they graduated, though their differing workplaces meant that they didn't see as much of each other as they had used to. "Just thought I'd give you a call, since we haven't seen each other in a while. How you feeling? I heard you were kinda ill recently."

"Yeah, it was just a cold or something," said Samantha. "Don't worry, I feel fine now."

"Okay, great," said Dawn. "Work treating you alright?"

"Yeah, same as always," said Samantha. "Manager wasn't too pleased that I was out for a week, but hey, I can't help being ill, can I?"

"Nope," said Dawn. "Hey, can I moan to you for a minute?"

Samantha shifted into a lying-down position on the sofa, her knees bent so she could fit on. "Sure. Moan away."

Dawn made an annoyed noise down the phone. "I had the rudest woman in the shop today." Dawn worked at the customer service desk for a major clothing retailer. "She came up with a dress, saying, 'I'd like to return this dress, please'. I told her I'd need the receipt. She said she didn't have it. I told her, 'It's company policy, we can't accept returns unless you can provide proof of purchase". So she was like, 'Are you accusing me of stealing?' And I was like, 'No, I'm just saying, you have to provide the receipt before we can accept it," and she was like, 'You're accusing me of stealing this. I want to talk to your manager, because that's outta line.' And I was like, 'Alright, I'll get the manager' - y'know, still trying to be all nice and polite and stuff, because you're not allowed to get mad at them no matter how mad they are at you - Sandy comes down, and she's dealt with these kinda people before, so I know how this is gonna go down.

"The woman says to her, 'This woman is accusing me of stealing this dress, I want you to do something about that'. I've already explained to Sandy what's going on, so Sandy just says, 'She's not accusing you of stealing anything. If you go home and get the receipt, we'll be happy to accept the return'. 'What do I need the receipt for?' she goes. 'Proof of purchase,' says Sandy, 'company policy'. 'So you're accusing me of stealing as well?!' says the woman, and she goes off on this rant, saying how she's never gonna shop here again, and she's gonna tell all her friends not to shop here, and Sandy just says, with this bitter sarcastic smile on her face, 'We're sorry to lose your patronage', and then the woman stormed out."

"Jesus," exclaimed Samantha. "How rude!"

"I know," said Dawn wearily; Samantha could almost see her rolling her eyes. "But the moment she was gone, Sandy was like - pardon my French here - she said, "Wow, what a total bitch. Sorry you had to deal with that, Dawn," and, you know, that just made me feel a lot better, knowing I had her support. We all had a good laugh about it afterwards, I feel fine now, but… ugh. Sometimes the people I have to deal with just wind me up so much, you know?"

"Yeah, I can imagine," said Samantha, nodding. "I hope you don't have to deal with people like that too often."

"Oh, not at all," said Dawn, "about 99.9 percent of them are perfectly decent, ordinary folk. It's just that little 0.1 percent that are just determined to make you feel beneath them." Dawn heaved a sigh, and Samantha could tell that she was done with her rant, and feeling much better for it. "Thanks, Samantha," she said. "I needed to get all that off my chest."

"It's no problem," said Samantha. "We all need a little moan now and then, right?"

"Yep," said Dawn. "Okay, on to a rather more happy topic… since it's been a while since we last met up, I was thinking maybe we could go see a movie or something?"

"Yeah, that'd be cool," said Samantha, nodding. "Hey, isn't The Dark Knight Rises coming out this week? I wanted to go see that."

"Yeah, it's out this Friday," said Dawn. "I'll see if I can get us some tickets."

"Alright, thanks, Dawn," said Samantha, smiling. "I'm looking forward to it already."

"Me too," said Dawn. "Alright, I gotta go: I got some stuff I need to do. I'll see you soon."

"Okay, see ya," said Samantha. "Bye."

"Bye," said Dawn, before hanging up.