Tag, You're It

Adult life is chock full of social etiquette - those little traditions which no one tells you about but heaven forbid you accidentally break one of them, or else you will be branded as unworthy for future social interactions. The only thing more annoying than how many of these social rules there are is the fact that many came into existence without much explanation and yet are now considered iron-clad. Normally I like a little bit of reason behind my rules, which is why there are many social traditions which I will never fully understand. But the one I want to focus on with this post is the one which states you must always take the price tag off any gift you are giving someone. Why? I mean, we're all adults here - we all know gifts cost money. (Unless you are giving the gift to a child who is too young to have any concept of money in which case they won't care how much the gift was anyway, only if it is loud and bright.) I assume this tradition comes from the days when letting people know how much (or, really, how little) you spent on them was considered rude but aren't we passed this little charade now? I mean, as a thrifty shopper I appreciate a bargain hunter as much as the next person so I would almost rather you tell me how good a deal you got because I'm the kind of person who isn't going to enjoy something if I think the person spent too much money on it anyway. Leave the price tag on, let me know you got it used and on sale and rather than thinking you view me as a person who isn't worth the money for a new one I will most likely applaud you for getting me such a cool gift at such a good price rather.

I say all this and yet I am as guilty of it as the next person because between Christmas and family birthdays I have spent a lot of time in the last couple of months picking at the corner of a price tag, trying to catch enough of a corner to that I can pull the tag off and then spending another few minutes looking at the item from every angle to make sure I didn't miss any. (Perhaps this is why the issue is so fresh on my mind.) I mean, if we're all going to keep up with this asinine tradition the least the store owners could do is come up with a better system, whether it is changing where they put the tags or the adhesive they use to secure them in place. Because right now they certainly aren't doing me any favors. I want to ask you a very simple question - is there any better feeling in the world than the satisfaction which comes from catching the price tag at just the right angle and having the entire thing come off in one piece? (I have found Barnes & Nobles is the best for this and the fact that I even have an opinion on the matter shows you how seriously I take it.) When that happens I am more pleased with myself than a doctor who cured a deadly disease. Conversely, is there anything more annoying that a price tag which refuses to come off? I was fighting with a tag the other afternoon which would only come off in small strips. It must have taken me 5 minutes just to get enough of the tag ripped away enough so that the price was no longer visible, at which point I declared victory and called it a day, only to come back 5 minutes later to take another crack at it because my brain simply doesn't allow jobs like that to go on half-finished.

Now, you may be saying to yourself that this wouldn't be a problem if I just bought items which had the normal, non-sticky tag on them which hangs from a thin piece of plastic. This is mostly true - that is the vastly superior system if you are sure the item you are about to buy is going to remain in your possession for the foreseeable future. However, they pretty much only use this kind of tag when they are selling clothes and I tend not to buy people clothing because I never get the size right. Beside, it isn't like this method is foolproof. In fact, it is actually worse when you are talking about returning items as trying to do that with a tag missing is a whole other set of problems. The other day I went to return a shirt that I had given my father as a gift. (See?) When I was wrapping it I was very confidence it would fit - so confident, in fact, that I had ripped the tag off. Well, it turned out to not be long enough, which meant my confidence had been misplaced. Again, the store was only too happy to take it back but before they would do that the woman behind the counter would need to make an entirely new tag and attach it to the shirt to replace the one I had thrown away. (The reason why this had to be done at that exact second were never properly explained to me. Perhaps they wanted to be ready just in case the person behind me in line was looking for a sweater in that exact size at that exact moment.) Seeing as how the woman handling my return was roughly 80 and on a bad hip it probably took her about 10 times as long as it should have if I hadn't had to take the tag off. So, this system may be a little better but clearly not perfect.

Making this entire process all the more frustrating is the fact that we have already come up with the perfect system, only many store choose not to use it - the normal tags with a smaller, removable piece attached to the bottom with only the price on it. These kinds of tags allow the gift-giver bow to social etiquette and tear away the price without also getting rid of the bar code the person at the register needs in case the gift has to be returned. Hell, I have even seen stick-on price tags with this technology and yet, for some reason, many stores stick with the old-school price tag in which the price is at the top and the code is on the bottom, making it impossible to keep unless you want the person to know exactly how much you value their friendship. I am sure this is done for the same reason all things are done in the retail world - money. I mean, it can't be a surprise that the most common place to see this two-piece tags are places like Pier 1, which is the kind of store in which $80 for bookends seems reasonable. But, really, how much more can these tags cost in comparison to regular kind, especially when you would be buying them in the bulk quantities of your typical chain store? I would contend the price would be more than made up with more efficient workers, especially when Ethel from register 3 isn't being asked to work a complicated printer and the gun which shoots the tags through clothing. I was terrified she was going to hurt herself while re-tagging my item and then I would feel compelled to get her a gift. But I can assure you of this much, if I had I would have been damn sure to leave the price tag on.