Editor’s note: This post was actually published on Sunday September 24th, but I adjusted the date to September 21st to “bump” it behind the first part.

• The reality is the company involved is an excellent one, very successful, and they broke no law… merely failed to implement one of their own policies designed to be industry leaders in price fairness to consumers.
• I since determined it’s also likely that by the letter of their policy they were correct and I was wrong… alas, since they didn’t have any of the signs up they were supposed to have and their retail management team hadn’t yet been trained on it, they mishandled it to the point where I received a free umbrella. My fourth umbrella from the same company (the other three I paid for) because, yes, I lose them.
• Hey, I’m not perfect.
• I posted the previous post (above) to tease my silly – yet oh-so-amazing in depth, humour, passion, and love – girlfriend, Jacqui.
• The reality is that Jackie was replying to a “tongue-in-cheek” email I sent her using a truly bad pun… and so what she said made total sense. Both in her initial response time, the dilligence she showed in tracking down answers from her management team when presented with new information (which demonstrates her intelligence), and in her warm communication she is a top-notch customer service agent.
• I say this from experience both as a customer and in the sales and customer service business.
• The other reality is that Jackie doesn’t “like” me… lol… in that sense.
• Truthfully, I couldn’t even get Jacqui to be jealous at her faux competition: She read the email and said, “I like her.” I guess her real personality really does shine through her writing.
• No matter what the company in question does, I won’t entertain myself with games like registering a domain name… ’twas in jest. The fact is as you’ll see by reading the right hand column →
  I have far better things to do with the next three months.
• Yes, I said I’d recommend that two different agencies review the situation (i.e. I’d write a letter) and will if the company doesn’t enhance their signage and training in this area across the country in each of their retail units… but my distinct impression is that once the shortcoming was pointed out to them, they are more interested in fixing it than I am.
• So all is well that ends well… the company has an opportunity to make good on its initial commitment for the reasons which caused them to embrace it in the first place… I got to be totally cheap thrifty (I like this)… to tease my love(r)… and a cheeky customer service agent to boot.
• The cheeky customer service agent can hardly complain when she emailed me to tell me how cheeky she is and that she likes teasing.

What’s not to love about that?