The Customer Is Always Right, Especially When You Threaten Him

There's three dog stores in my neighborhood, and I picked the wrong one.

The first day we had Bea, we ordered a license tag from the "Kitty and Dog Lounge" on Vernon Boulevard. They told us we'd have it in two weeks. What they should have said was "at least two weeks," because I went in two and a half weeks later, and it still wasn't there.

I calmly questioned why, and things got ugly. There were two people behind the counter - a girl and a guy. As the girl stammered at my question, the guy threatened to fight me. That's right - to fight me. Because I wanted to know why my tag was late.

I soon found out he doesn't even work there - the girl is just his girlfriend. Imagine that - your boyfriend visits you at work and he threatens to fight a customer. I understand attraction to the knight in shining armor. I do not understand attraction to the high school equivalency degree in a wife beater.

His exact words were "If you want to discuss this, we can take this outside." Yup. As I'm holding my adorable shelter dog, he tried to take it outside. I should have, knowing full well that Bea would have bit his fucking head off. Which would have been the first true benefit of her separation anxiety.

I laughed at the guy's rage and asked him if he had just heard what he said out loud. When he tried escalating things again, I said "you know you're an adult, right?" Finally I began ignoring him, and asked the girl if I could speak to the owner. The girl said the owner was "very busy." So I asked for my money back. The girl said she couldn't do that. I left and disputed the charge with my credit card company.

Before I left, the girl's cro-magnon Jersey Shore extra of a boyfriend said I could give them bad reviews all I wanted, he's still going to standup for his girlfriend. Good idea, Pauly D. Except I'm taking it a step further.

I went on Yelp, Google Maps, Yellow Pages, Super Pages, and a dozen other sites I had to sign up for just to give a bad review. I posted to my neighborhood dog owner group, two neighborhood resident groups, and the Better Business Bureau. Oh, and I encouraged the 25K people I have on my Facebook and Twitter to do the same. I'll also be calling the owner later and telling her exactly what happened. How's that for a Situation?

My prediction is that the girl gets reprimanded, if the business even stays open. Either way, the girl will be pissed at her idiot boyfriend. And guessing this isn't the first (or the last time) his rage got her in trouble, it will lead to them eventually breaking up. Since he was already free to spend the day with her at work on a Wednesday, that will leave him broke and single, while me and my wife and our adorable dog happily buy a tag from Petco.

If you have a moment, go post the worst reviews possible on the Yelp page for "Kitty and Dog Lounge." After all, he did want to take the fight outside.