One of my pet peeves is when a store tries to hide the fact that they're selling me a returned item.

Now don't get me wrong, I'll buy the price-reduced open-box item at Best Buy before I'll buy the new one. However, in that case, the store actually lists what's missing from the package. At the very least, they've marked the item such that I can compare it to a new one and decide for myself if I'm willing to accept it instead of a new one.

I went to the local Lowe's Home Im­prove­ment Store yesterday to buy some sandpaper. I picked up a roll of adhesive backed paper that's labelled "4 1/2in x 10yds, 120 grit" -- it's clearly a roll of 80 grit sandpaper. How can the person who accepted that return possibly be worth whatever they're paid to work there. I understand that not everyone is handy, but it's hard to mistake 80 grit paper for 120 grit paper.

But wait, there's more!

I pick up another roll of paper that's maybe 1/3 the size of the first roll -- and it has the same stinkin' label. Obviously these rolls of sandpaper can't be the same length! So I took both packages to the service desk and explained that I wanted to complain. After only 5 minutes of explaining I managed to convince them that maybe someone should go look at all of the paper on the display (I'm still pretty sure that they didn't understand that two identical products shouldn't be different shapes, sizes and weights).

So I came home and ordered everything I needed from Online Industrial Supply Cor­po­ra­tion, who ironically has better prices.