Discount Hell: A Retail Hell Underground Digital Short

By Freeman Hall

These Discount Rats want more than sales

To Discount Rats, the world should be free . . . and retail slaves are to blame when it isn’t.

These crazy customers show up with purses full of coupons and intend to leave with enough swag to impress a thief. They’ll negotiate, scream, complain, and threaten - so long as the sale is in sight!

These 33 hilarious-and-true stories of penny-pinchers and stingy shoppers are straight from the bloggers of RetailHellUnderground - and boy do they have some history with these misers! From the Meal Voucher Rat who needs an amusement park escort to find the right restaurant to the Credit Rat who gets a black mark in the customer database, these denied bargain hunters will have you in stitches!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Release date: Sep 17, 2012
• ISBN: 9781440537066

Freeman Hall

Author of the acclaimed memoir Retail Hell, Freeman Hall spends his days running popular blogs and dogwalking his neighbor's adorable canines. He is also the author of Little Monster Hell, Discount Hell, and Return to the Big Fancy.

Book preview

Discount Hell

A Retail Hell Underground Digital Short

Edited by Freeman Hall

Avon, Massachusetts

Contents

Greetings Curious Reader

Summer Sale Rat Storm

Shitty Cash and the Price Whore

Rat Beast Want Candy

How to Get Free Stuff in Burger Hell

Picky Rat

The Tale of Crazy Coin Lady

Mullet Man

The Desperate Rat

Maryland Brown ’n’ Dirty

Old Slavery: One of Those Days from Hell

The Vulture

My First Discount Rat

Extreme Coupon Hell

The Illiterate Rat

The Four-Cent Douche

No Discount, No Book!

Tale of the Six Feet Under Meal Voucher Rats

Death of a Bookstore

Crazy Discount Rat Showdown

Forever Sale Dreams

The Fall of Credit Rat

Nickel and Dimed

The Anti-Discount Rat

The Tragedy of Selective-Reading Disorder

Summertime with the Rats

The Pretentious Bitch Discount

McRat Drinks for Free

The Cost of Discounting

Coupon Hag Inspiration

How to Score Free Shit While Being the Biggest Douche in the Room

Uprising of the Discount Rat Ballsacks

Dragon Lady

Why Isn’t It Free?

Copyright Page

Greetings Curious Reader,

My name is Freddy, cryptkeeper of the Retail Hell Underground Blog. In 2007, I and many of my friends were fed up with our retail jobs — the way we were being treated by our companies, customers, and coworkers. There was no place to go for support or help, or to blow off steam and laugh about the place we call hell. So, I took to the dark recesses of the Internet in a skull mask and wig and created Retail Hell Underground — a place for anyone in the service industry who needs to rant, laugh, support, or seek advice about their jobs. RHU is not just for those in retail but anyone who has to deal with customers or coworkers. Because the anti-human corporations we slave away for would fire us if they knew our identities, we hide our names and faces on The Underground. Bloggers of RHU have taken on screen personalities to tell their stories and rant about what pisses them off or makes them go WTFLOL. Many of the stories you are about to read come from RHU’s Monster Bloggers — those who share their experiences, photos, and voices regularly and you can find them lurking on The Underground on any given day. The tales you are about to read are all based on true incidents. Names and places have been changed to protect the innocent and keep the guilty from suing. Any resemblances to real people or real companies are purely coincidental — so don’t whip out your lawyer panties, corporate America!

Enjoy your stay on The Underground Curious Reader. Remember to keep your arms and legs inside at all times and wear your safety belt! This wild ride through service hell will definitely turn you upside down!

And remember … laughing about your hell is the best way to cure it.

xo

Freddy

Summer Sale Rat Storm

Why isn’t it on sale? I thought everything was on sale today, said the annoying Discount Rat wearing a worn out Ed Hardy baseball cap. If I’d had some D-Con rat poison I would have shoved it in her mouth and told her it was new Christian Audigier candy!

Chew well to get the sweet flavor and enjoy!

But when you are on commission and working a trashy summer markdown sale at The Big Fancy, you need those Discount Rats for sales — and your paycheck, even if feels like only fifty cents at a time. What you don’t need are the ones like Ed Hardy Rat who focus all of their attention on wanting things on sale that are not.

No, I’m sorry. None of the Marc is on sale right now, I replied having said something just like it at least a hundred times already that day.

However the discount game was not over for Ed Hardy Rat. Since I had dashed her Marc Jacobs dreams, she simply turned her attention to another bag and repeated the question by filling in the blank and hoping I’d come up with a different answer.

What about the Burberry? Are those on sale?

What about you stop asking me if everything is on sale! You’re not at Marshalls!

No Ma’am, I replied, Only the bags on the tables and a few on the counters. Everything has a sale sign.

Now go crawl back into the sewer you came out of!

Oh, Ed Hardy Rat answered in a confused daze, How about the Coach? Are they on sale?

Do you see a fucking sale sign? I think your hideous Ed Hardy cap has squeezed out your brains!

If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me if something randomly was on sale when there was no sign, I wouldn’t have to work at The Big Fancy, because the annoying D Rats would keep me rich with their constant dumbass questions.

After I told Ed Hardy Rat an emphatic no on that one, she systematically went from one brand to the next — DKNY, Ferragamo, Kate Spade, Cole Haan, Fendi, Gucci. It took everything in me not to beat her with a nearby 50% off sign.

That was the problem with the Discount Rat. In their dreams everything was on sale whenever they wanted and for the low, low price of free. The D Rat is one of the most bloodsucking, but necessary shoppers of the retail world because they do buy, but at the expense of driving salespeople crazy.

At the moment I and my fellow sales associates of Big Fancy’s Handbag Jungle were in the midst of a full blown Discount Rat Sale Storm, having our blood and energy drained at such a rate, I was sure we’d all end up at the bar after our shift was over.

It was the day after the Summer Clearance Sale, which is one of the worst days to work when it comes to D Rats, because most of them shop both days of a sale — first and second — fearing they’re going to miss the lowest price.

As the Rats swarmed around me looking for discounts that would strike their fashion fancies, I felt naked and vulnerable standing among the six wooden tables that held everything we had on sale. My coworker Cammie was at the register helping a Fat Rat who was getting price adjustments on five different bags. At the other register bay manager Maude was stuck waiting on a Rat with a bad weave who was arguing that we should indeed take her expired coupon from Macys.

We’re not Macy’s and the coupon expired three months ago! Maude said almost at a scream.

Bad Weave Rat shut up momentarily and then turned desperate like so many do. What about a new account? I still get 15 percent if I open a new account? Right?

Maude gritted her teeth and said, Let me get you an application. I’m sure she was imagining what it would be like to rip out the Rat’s weave one strand at time. She would most likely end up on the phone for twenty minutes.

Yes, the Handbag Jungle looked like a scene out of the creepy horror movie Willard; only the swarming rodent rats running everywhere were of the humankind with hair and annoying statements.

Is everything an additional? asked a tall Ginger Rat wearing Sunglasses.

This was followed by a Tween Rat arguing with me that she should get a regular priced Juicy Couture for 50 percent off because someone dumped it on the sale table.

Then a short Rat with black hair that looked just like Snooki, tapped me on the shoulder and said, Is everything additional off?

We don’t have additionals, I told Snooki Rat, just as a Wrinkled Rat grabbed my arm and said, Why not! Everything is so expensive here! You should give additional. Why not?

As the ratty winds continued to blow around me, I suddenly noticed what was about to become the eye of my Rat hurricane. A Valley Housewife Rat was walking by and saw Ed Hardy Rat and Snooki Rat talking about how much they admired a Michael Kors satchel with studs on it. The Valley Housewife Rat decided to jump in on the conversation, and what I overheard made me want to break out in a sweat and run to hide in the bathroom (but I would have felt bad leaving Maude and Cammie with all these horrible Discount Rats.)

It’s on sale 40 percent off at The Big Fancy in Hollywood, the Valley Housewife Rat practically shouted to the entire Handbag Jungle, I was there this morning. They must have forgotten to mark it down here.

It’s never a good thing when the Discount Rats start chatting about sales and discounts among themselves. Most of the time they don’t have their facts straight.

Immediately, Snooki Rat screamed and said, "OMG! The Michael