I Worked the Returns Hotline and a Man Tried to Return His Wife

I worked the returns hotline for a big furniture chain, which is a call center that exists entirely to serve a store, meaning I got the exact worst of both worlds -- the misery of the phones and the chaos of retail returns, combined, for twelve dollars an hour.

Most calls were normal. A wobbly table. A couch that came in the wrong color. A bed frame missing the one bolt that holds the entire concept of "bed" together. You learn to process a return in your sleep. You learn the policy like scripture. And then, one gray afternoon, a man called and opened with a sentence I was not trained for.

"I need to return my wife," he said.

There was a pause. On my end, obviously. He seemed very calm about it.

"I'm sorry," I said, going straight to the script because the script is a life raft, "can you tell me the item you're looking to return today?"

"My wife," he said again. "Her side. I need to return her side of it."

And slowly, the way the sun comes up, I understood. He was talking about the bed. Specifically, one of our adjustable split mattresses -- the kind where each side moves independently, so two people can each have their own firmness, their own angle, their own little kingdom. His and hers. And the "hers," he explained, in a voice that was trying very hard to stay flat, was no longer needed. Because she was gone. Not gone gone. Just -- gone. Moved out. Two weeks ago. Took the dog.

Now I want to be clear, this is a comedy story, but there was a moment there, right in the middle of it, that was not funny at all. Because this man did not want a refund. Not really. He wanted to make one part of his enormous, empty, half-firm bed stop reminding him of a person. And the only mechanism he had for that, the only customer service line open to his grief at two in the afternoon, was me. The returns hotline.

"Sir," I said, "I'm really sorry, but the split mattress is sold as a single unit. I can't return just one side."

"You can't take back half a bed," he said.

"No, sir. I'm afraid we can't take back half a bed."

He laughed. It was not a good laugh. "Yeah," he said. "Nobody can."

So here is what I did, and I want it on the record because it is the one time in four years I broke the script for a good reason. I could not return his wife. But I could tell him that the adjustable base had a firmness setting, and that he could set her side to match his, so the bed would at least feel like one bed instead of two. And I walked him through it. Step by step, over the phone, a stranger, adjusting the empty half of his bed to match the full one.

"There," I said, when he had it. "Now it's just a bed."

He was quiet for a second. Then he said, "Thanks. Sorry. I know this isn't what you do."

It is, actually. It is exactly what I do. I told him to keep the receipt in case he ever wanted to sell it, and to call back if the base ever squeaked, and he said he would, and he hung up.

I did not process a return that day. But I have taken ten thousand calls, and that is the only one I remember. You cannot return a wife. But you can, it turns out, level out the bed.