I rarely vent on the internet, but today, I REALLY NEED TO VENT about my experience with REI! So I went to REI to get some stuff for my daughters camping trip. From the moment I entered the store, I noticed this older lady was staring at me from over near the trekking poles area. I'm thinking she must be from loss prevention,. I'm looking a little haggard. Working 20 hr days for two weeks and had not shaved in a four days....plus I'm just naturally kind of ugly. No big deal and moved along and here she comes. Again STARING!! So now I'm like, what's up with this lady? I finish getting my stuff and head to the cashier. Guess who is there ahead of me? Right.. The crazy staring lady! I'm thinking she is going to ask accuse me of stealing something WTF!! She turns around and start staring at me again! So I start playing with my phone because now it's getting crazy..., I don't want to make eye contact, because she is making me VERY uncomfortable...and a little pissed off. Finally she says, "I want to apologize for staring at you, but you look just like my son who passed away." I thought to myself, "Oh, now it makes sense now, but jeez this is odd". Now I felt kinda bad for thinking she was crazy or some overzealous security, so all I could think of saying was, "I'm sorry for your loss." She's says, "Thank you.....but I have a favor to ask. I know its weird, I understand if you didn't want to, but can you give me a hug and say bye bye mama"? Inside I was like are you serious, but I know people have different ways of getting over a loss so I went ahead and did it. She smiles, thanks me, and leaves. The cashier rings up my stuff and the total comes out to $900.87 and I'm like, hold on. I know REI stands for "Really Expensive Stuff" but I just bought a few things and I know it should be more like $150 or something. The cashier then tells me that my total was included with my moms. I said, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!" The casher says, "Your mom said you were paying for her stuff along with your things". I told her that "...the woman was NOT my mom". She says, "Well I saw you hug her and heard you call her mama." I'm like oh chit, I just got scammed! I can't believe this! I told the casher to hold on and I ran out of the store looking for this woman, ready to drag her butt back to the counter by her hair!!! I see her about 20 yards away, loading up her car and I started running towards her. She saw me and jumped in her car with a bit of stumble, but fast. I got to her just as she was putting her leg in and grabbed her by her leg. Told her she's not going anywhere. She put up a struggle and now i am thinking, I can't hit this crook, she's a women, but I sure wanted to. Instead I just kept pulling on her leg, until suddenly, unknown to me, her prosthetic leg popped off right in my hands! Now I'm thinking for just a second, "No wonder she had a bit of a hobble, I was thinking she just may have banged her leg in her attempt to escape". Really, this goes through my brain at that very moment. Then I think to myself, "Why am I thinking about that right now?" Strange what goes through your brain during a stressful moment. WTH? NOW I'm thinking WHAT THE HECK? Is this really happening right now? Are you kidding..how does this even happen. So I drop the wooden leg and grabbed her other leg and started pulling..just like I'm pulling yours right now.
