I am not a used car salesman for many reasons.

Kenz and I were in the Japanese bookstore, looking at the tiny plastic sausage erasers and Hello Kitty staple removers, when we saw tiny replicas of Eames chairs in 4 inch square boxes. We realized we needed matching Eames Rockers. A tiny alarm went off in my head ("Jon is going to think this is a knick knack...he will not enjoy this..."), but it was ignored, tiny chairs purchased. We came home and opened the boxes, thinking some number in Japanese on the side told us the model we picked out. Not true. One was a molded plastic-type chair, the other a more boring office type chair. We were kind of bummed...They were also way smaller than anticipated (my first two fingers hardly sit comfortably). I figured I'd just return them since they seemed to fall under their return policy.

I went back today to return the chairs. I was greeted with a blank stare. I told her I wanted to return them. She became uncomfortable and was looking at the policy to see how I could be rejected. She muttered something about a "surprise box," and went to get someone else. After a lot of Japanese, girl #2 bluntly told me they fell under the "stationary" category and they were not returnable. Then they blankly stared at me. I was (understandably, I thought) confused. And, when given a blank stare and no talking, I start in with slightly sarcastic questions.

Me: "Stationary? Is that because you can write on tiny plastic chairs?"
Her: (stares)
Me: (stares back)
Her: Actually, they are a surprise box, and you can't return those.
Me: "That's not listed in your policy." (nor on the box--although it's all Japanese)
Her: (stares)
Me: "So... surprise boxes aren't listed on the policy because you want to "surprise" the customer when they want to return it?"
Her: (stares).

You get the idea. After a few seconds I realized that we were in a staring contest and I was competing against a master of stoicism. I made a few frustrated noises, conceded defeat and walked away, although fuming. I bought some tiny bottles of fibe-mini (see below) to ease my anger, and got comfortable with my two new knick knacks.

One more thing--A definition of a "knick-knack" would be a small item placed on display with no real purpose or use. Imagine my surprise when I found my knick-knack hating husband's gift to the book case recently...


So what's worse... a tiny replica of iconic design, or a replica of a housemember's teeth gathering dust?