One of these things is not like the other

Mom and I went to Hancock Fabrics when I was in Missouri to look for patterns, in case there was anything there I wanted to sew up.  They had McCall's patterns on sale for $1.99, but there was nothing that sparked my interest.  Mom found some doll patterns she wanted for her inventory and she needed some interfacing.

We went to check out and we were using a 40% off coupon from Jo-Ann, which we could use at Hancock since they honour competitor's coupons.  The woman rang up the order and told Mom the total was $21 (and change).  Mom asked her if she had scanned the coupon.  She then did so and said, "Your new total is thirty-one dollars."  Uhh....

Mom said, "How could a discount coupon make my total go up?"  The lady told her it didn't.  Mom said, "But you just said my total was twenty-one dollars, then you rang up my coupon, and then you said my total was thirty-one dollars."

The woman then pointed to the small thing on the counter that you slide your credit/debit card into and said, "You can't always go by that.  You have to watch this here."  Then she points to the cash register monitor.  Um... aren't they connected, though?  At this point, Mom and I both say, "But you TOLD US the total was twenty-one dollars."

"I DID NOT!"

Mom gives me her "Am I nuts?" look.  Just then, the woman at the next register (the two cashier stand back-to-back) asks, "Is there a problem?"  Mom tells her the issue, and the woman comes over to look at it.  Mom tells her that if it'll help, she'll just take the coupon back because at this rate, she really can't afford to use it anyway.  I walk away before I die laughing.  They get it straightened out, and we leave.  The woman never would admit that she ever did tell us the total was $21.

A few days later, Mom and I went to Kohl's because she needed to take something back.  While we were there, I bought three pairs of pants (a pair of jeans and two works pants - yeah, I being optimistic) that were on clearance.  We checked out around 8:30 p.m.  By the time we got home, let the dogs out, and Mom fired up the computer to check her email about half an hour later, there was a 20% coupon for Kohl's starting the next day.  The coupon was good for anything in the store, including clearance items.

We went back the next day with the pants, the receipt, and the coupon to see if I could get my 20% back.  We explained the situation to the customer service representative working the counter, she processed my refund, gave me cash back (yes, actual cold, hard, cash!), and gave us our coupon back so we could continue to shop in the shop in the store with it.  When Mom asked if she needed to mark our bag since we were going to browse in the store, she looked at us and said, "Oh - you brought the merchandise back with you?  In the future, you don't need to do that.  Just bring your receipt in.  That will be plenty fine, ma'am."

When we were in line to check out (they have one main line and then you go to the first available cashier), Mom asked the woman behind us if she had a 20% coupon.  She didn't, so Mom gave her one of ours.  When we got there to check out, I checked out first and used the remaining coupon.  Then I gave the coupon to Mom to use.  And the cashier (1) didn't even care that we were recycling a coupon, (2) actually knew how to ring up a 20% discount both times, and (3) let us take the coupon with us since it was still good for a few more days.

Now THAT's customer service.