Traveling across town to chemo last week, walking from the homeless 'clubhouse' in Georgetown for my 2wice yearly shower and laundary toward the hospital, I took a different route, and saw a North Face store. I didn't know there were North Face stores.
Some very Kind folks, 1.5 years ago, took me to REI in Alexandria, to get some life and death essentials, including a replacement for the 8 year old, worn-out backpack that I live out of. The REI replacement was a North Face, and has been wonderful, but a tear occurred near one of the shoulder straps, and, having taught myself to sew, I'd repaired it, but it is in a difficult spot, and I've been worried, trying to nurse it, having no funds to replace it.
So, I went in the store, "Do you have a repair kit? I've sewn it, but I don't think it is going to hold much longer."
"Oh, too bad you sewed it. North Face has a lifetime guarantee. (I had zero idea. I HAD called REI and was told, not unkindly, 'well, we might be able to do something for you, if you really think that is fair, but if you've used it every day for 1.5 years...." So, I didn't pursue that.) "We have a lifetime warranty, but because you sewed it, I don't think the home office well honor it..."
"...So, we will give you a full credit for what you payed REI and let you use it in the store,' interrupted the young store manager, overhearing the conversation. I was dumbfounded. I remain dumbfounded.
This may have been a kind exception - I mean, I bought from REI - maybe he correctly guessed I was homeless, penniless, and went beyond the rules.
Do not use this story to gouge them, ok? PATRONIZE THEM!!!!
"So shines a good deed in a weary world," Willy Wonka
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