I can't let the doom and gloom get to me, after all it's the holidays. People out shopping, the Salvation army collecting and---some people just don't get it, they're ripping off corporations returning clothes they've purchased and worn for three months, or junk they bought somewhere else. If these scams continue, the economy will tank faster than North Korea hacking the entire Fortune 500! But retailers today should stop complaining because they don't know how lucky they are never to have encountered the Take Back Queen of Echo Park.

We met in California and even the greatest of melting pots couldn't work that one out but the community property laws eventually did so. It was Bronx/Italian--"you wanna go to the mat on this?" meets Ohio farm boy---"I'll cooperate, but don't push my damn buttons."

Angela's haggling made be bleed internally. In Ohio we'd ask the price and if we didn't buy it we would apologize for half an hour. The aftermath of trips to Mexico with Angela and the purchase of a guitar or scarf could keep me in bed for days. If I had been more flexible, I'd be a rich man today. Nothing, nothing, was not returnable by Angela to a gift shop, pharmacy or department store. If I had returned half the stuff I've bought in a lifetime I'd be living in a New York penthouse.

We were in a budgeting mess, plus baby sitting a colleague's three year old boy, Sammy. Angela dipped down into the inventory of returnable clothes. She wasn't a "free renter" and we kept a neat house. Clothes to be returned were in a pile on the closet floor, tags in tact. She pulled a dress out of inventory, handed it to me: "I need you to return this to I Magnin", she said. "No way", I said, leaping to my last defense too quickly. "Sammy is driving me nuts, and you need to do something to help around here." she said, "Sammy, put your coat on."

I wasn't dressed for I Magnin and Sammy already had chocolate down the front of his coat. Nevertheless the intrepid returners approached a counter in the dress department. "I'm returning this", I said. The woman gave me the side-eye, "I don't recognize this", she said. We talked pleasantly, Sammy was at the cosmetics counter across the way smearing it with chocolate and the woman went into the back room. When she returned, she carried the entire authority of I Magnin on her face. "This purchase is three years old", she said, "it's not that we don't carry the dress any longer, we don't even have this department" pointing to the tag.

This was serious. I was not ready for a divorce during the holiday season. I gathered my Appalachian roots and spoke in measured terms, deep breathing. "Here's how it is, I need to return this dress or face humiliation. And believe me you will not want to deal with my wife when she hears about this and comes in here, I Magnin or no. She will hit more sour high notes than Minnie Pearl singing Madam Butterfly at the Grand Ol Opry and you'll lose more business than if you just take this back. Sammy, come on over to this counter."

The Christmas season and calm of the store somehow coalesced and the woman finally relented. "I'm going to take this back", but please tell her that our new policy is one year, not three." Sammy and I skipped out of the store as if we had just won the lottery.

I grew in stature in Angela's eye's. She figured she could actually take me on a trip to New York, ride the subway, and even go a family wedding. We got along for a good many years, the floor inventory of clothing, like a savings account, rising and falling with the economy and I was never again asked to return anything. My success at I. Magnin was like a rite of passage.

Despite all the news items decrying purchase return scams, the retailers today don't know how lucky they are, I suppose Angela might be buying most of her things on line. For me, I have no problem returning a table saw with a broken blade or a light fixture with a $10 vintage bulb missing because I was trained by a pro, a friend, and the Take Back Queen of Echo Park. Merry Christmas.