MY AMERICAN RETURNS THE POWER SAW

Well, I took the broken new cheap power saw of the previous post back to the big farmer-tool store where I'd bought it a couple months ago, of course taking the receipt along (I would never in a million years be so efficient as to save a receipt, let alone find it some months later, but the miraculous Echo is; always amazes me). In that still some-decades-ago-US part of my mind where my American resides, I was expecting that basically suspicious response from an incipiently surly clerk, "you got the receipt," (from under hooded eyes) "you sure you didn't remove those screws yourself, you know what the warrantee says," etc. with all those tacitly intimidating implications, then maybe "Ok we'll send it back to the manufacturer see what happens, be a few weeks, we'll let you know, just fill out these forms completely with this smeary ballpoint pen attached to the desktop with this powerful spring coil," and so on in my American's head. (I'm sure it isn't really like that in the US any more, I'm sure customer relations have become much more loving and personal, arm-around-the-shoulder caring and we're-all-in-this-together-y, with much better and unfettered pens, since my American's time there.)

Went in to the store, found the hardware clerk busy pricing some stuff; showed him the saw, where the screws had come out and probably shot down the mountain and the blade had come off but fortunately lockstopped; he said "please wait here," took the saw into the back of the store. A couple minutes later the manager found us, bowed deeply, said "we are very sorry for the extreme shock you must have suffered at this mishap" or words to that effect. And still to that effect, bowing as to very important persons, "please accept our profound apologies and be so good as to select one of these more expensive brand-name power saws as a token of our deep regret and respect for your patronage of our humble store." I picked out a very nice Ryobi: more power, lighter etc. The manager threw in an extra new blade as well, never even asked for the receipt. Despite many similar experiences here, my American was dumbfounded yet again.