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Being Wrong Has Never Felt So Right!

February 4th, 2008 by Ray Tice

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I want to start this off by pointing out that I knew that I was wrong. No matter how convincing I sound in my explanation, remember, I was wrong. This will come in handy for later when I get into the gist of my essay here.

Ready? Here goes.

So the fiancé and I are starting to get to the final stages of wedding planning here. We’re about 5 months out from gettin’ hitched and we’re making our final decisions and starting to buy what we need.

It’s expensive too, you know? Asking someone to marry you is like entering into a business venture together. There are lots of discussions between the two business partners and there are a lot of outside vendors used before the big opening of your business. The only difference is our main business goal is a one day affair. The grand opening is on the same day as the, “Going out of business!” sale.

So we’re shopping the other night for bridesmaids’ gifts at a store in the mall. I’m not going to mention the store’s name here because of the whole, “libel”, thing. Instead, I’ll just tell you the new name I’ve given to the store: “Stupid Store”.

We (Laura) pick out the gifts that she’s going to give the bridesmaids. Me, being the nice guy that I am, volunteer to pay for half of the gifts since it ain’t exactly going to be cheap. Laura has her items rung up first and for some reason the gods of good luck smile down on her.

For some reason or the other, one of Laura’s items rings up at a price which is substantially lower than what it is supposed to be. “Well, this must be your lucky day!” says the lady at the counter. “It seems that there’s some kind of mistake on our part because this is only ringing up at this price, and since it’s our mistake we have to give it to you at that price!” the salesclerk informed us while giving us a smile from a mouth that a toothbrush hadn’t passed through in years.

Let me describe this salesclerk to you. You know who Death is, right? You know, the Grim Reaper?

HE’S afraid of this woman.

I think she was born during the time when the world was in black and white. This old bag of bones shook as she walked from the counter to the register and I was sure her legs were going to snap like dried sticks with each step. Her voice actually echoed from inside her lungs and passed through the air, breaking it of all of its purity. And her eyes…oh, her eyes…two yellow bulbs from a “Light Brite” shoved through eye sockets would have made a prettier set of peepers.

But back to the story…

So Laura has received quite the deal on her share of the gifts. Me, thinking that this is awesome, place my items on the counter, confident that fantastic price breaks will soon come my way too.

Wrong.

My purchases ring up at the correct price and I’m suddenly paying FULL PRICE for everything.

“Well, you weren’t as lucky as your fiancé was!” says the salesclerk, whom I’m now calling, “Buzzard Woman”.

“No!” I exclaim, “I should pay the same price that she paid! We’re buying the same things, how can mine be more expensive?”

“You don’t understand, dear,” says Buzzard Woman, “her price was wrong. You have to pay the right price. She didn’t have to because we made a mistake.”

“Well make a ‘mistake’ on mine!”

See, even though I understood what was going on, I felt that I was being ripped off. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy that at least one of us was getting a break, I just wasn’t happy that such a horrific lapse in customer service occurred because of it. How can you tell one customer that they have to pay full price for the EXACT SAME AMOUNT AND SAME TYPE OF ITEMS that the person in front of them just got at a price break?

I also want to direct you to the first paragraph of this post. While I was upset that I wasn’t getting my way, I also knew that I was wrong. Mistakes happen. I would have been a little more upset if they had told Laura that she still had to pay the full price even though her item was ringing up at a lower rate. I would have been mad because they weren’t owning up to their mistake and being fair to the customer.

But still…even knowing that I was wrong didn’t help prevent me from getting a little
P-O’d about the whole situation.

What is it in our ego’s that make us want to be right so much that we overlook the realization that we’re wrong?

You ever have someone come up to you and try to tell you something that happened to them that they make out to be so horrible, but you kind of agree with the other side?

Person: Man, you’ve gotta hear what happened to me the other night.

Me: Shut up, I’m playing Tetris.

Person: No, you’ve gotta hear this! So I’m trying to shoplift a humidifier from Walgreens…

Me: What?

Person: No, listen. So I’m trying to steal a humidifier and I go up to the counter and go ahead and buy the new issue of People magazine so I don’t look so suspicious…

Me: Wait, you thought that buying a magazine would make up for stealing?

Person: Let me finish my story! So I put the magazine on the counter and the clerk is all like, ‘that will be 45 dollars, please’. And I’m all like, ‘what’?

Me: …

Person: The clerk is like, ‘yeah, 5 dollars for the magazine and 40 dollars for the humidifier under your shirt’.

Me: …

Person: Can you believe that she tried to charge me for BOTH items? I was so freaking mad that I dropped the humidifier, threw the magazine on the floor and charged out the store. They’re never getting my business again. Isn’t that just the stupidest thing that you’ve ever heard? The nerve of some people!

At this time the person telling you their obviously wrong argument starts shaking their head at you like watching them agree with themselves is going to inspire you to condone their stupidity as well.

Of course the only thing you can do is act like you don’t understand any type of logic or correctness at all and agree with them to make them feel better. Of course, you can kind of tease them first by pursing your lips and tilting your head to the side with one eye kind of half way closed. This makes them think about what they just said because if you, their friend, is about to disagree, maybe they WERE wrong. You play this up as long as you can to make them change their mind.

Of course, they DON’T change their mind so you have to agree to keep the friendship (and use of their Tetris game) going. It’s okay to tell someone else how stupid your friend is though. Just watch out that the other person doesn’t tilt their head to the side and purse their lips when you’re telling them…it may mean that YOU’RE the idiot and not your friend.

So think about this point for the next few days. Even when we, as a human race, know that we’re wrong, we still want to fight that knowledge and make everyone else think that we’re right anyway. The easiest person to convince that you’re always right is yourself. I mean, c’mon, you’re overlooking the sensible part of your brain that’s telling you that you’re a moron!

So yeah, think about this point. I expect a written response from you on my desk by the end of term. This will be a fun assignment, right? (Shakes head enthusiastically)

Being Wrong Has Never Felt So Right!

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