Bargaining Trouble

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This wonderful blog post is written by our favorite guest blogger, Daniella Medvedovski. Based on a true story :)

“I want my money back!” demanded my dad. “Or a bigger sized shirt!”  It was a beautiful day in Barcelona, Spain but inside this one souvenir shop, things were about to get PRETTY ugly!  My dad had been bargaining to get matching shirts for him, and my 2 brothers.  He had a good deal on the shirts already.  Not good, GREAT even, AMAZING!  But when he got ahold of his actual shirt, it turned out to be for 14 year olds!  I know he claims he’s only 20, but we all know that’s not true!  Now, both my parents were mad.  Okay, now we’re back to where I started.  “I want my money back!” demanded my dad. “Or a bigger sized shirt!”  The man who’d sold my dad the shirt many sizes too small started talking to my parents about how the shirt fits perfectly and how for a bigger one, we’d have to pay more.  This little chat soon turned into a full blown argument, causing many pairs of eyes to turn in our direction.

Just as I thought the salesman would finally give us the shirts we wanted (mostly because he wanted to get rid of us), out comes the shop manager looking madder than furious.  You could practically see the smoke coming out of his ears and nostrils.  The 6 foot tall man was towering over my father.  Very unluckily for daddy, he was standing in a corner - no place to go.  The manager put his hand in a gun position and held it against my dad’s head.  His other hand was on my dad’s neck, slightly squeezing it.

This was too much for me.  Tears gushing down my face, I ran out of the shop sobbing.  “G-g-grandp-p-pa,” I tried to say through the tears.  “Th-th-the g-g-guy.  He-he’s g-g-going t-to k-k-kill d-d-dad.”  There were two voices in my head, one telling me that it was true, and I would never see my dad again, and another saying that I was overreacting and it was just a little misunderstanding.  The first voice won though, and I couldn’t say any more - I was crying too much.  Confused, grandpa looked into the store (he hadn’t seen what was happening).  His eyes widened as he saw what was going on, and he turned to me.  “Look after your brothers for a second,” and with that, he disappeared into the souvenir shop.  A moment later, my mom was standing beside me.  “It’s okay... you know what!?  Let’s go take a walk.”  I stared at her - was she really suggesting we take a walk!?  When my dad was potentially getting killed by the lunatic manager!?  Your dad’s fine, the voice in my head told me.  Even your mom thinks so.  I took a deep breath.  “I’ll go on a walk with you,” I mumbled, and down the street we went.

“Dad will be fine,” Mom said.  “Grandma and Grandpa are right there, and there are plenty of police officers around in case things get too out of hand.”  Just as she said that, I saw my dad walking out of the store, followed by grandma and grandpa.  Tears still dripping slowly from my face, I ran to them.  I had so many questions at that point, but the main one bugging me was the most obvious.  “What happened in there?”  My dad took a deep breath, clearly trying to stay calm.  “I’ll get to that, but right now we’re going to the square.  There’s an event going on, and we’re not going to be late to the whole reason we came here!”  So we walked, and as we did, dad told his story.

“After you left, the manager let go of me, realizing everyone was staring.  He asked me if I wanted the shirt or not, and when I accused him of choking me, he denied it and said he had a security camera that could prove his point.  I wanted to see it, but your grandma pulled me out of there before I could say anything else.  Bella,” he addressed my mom when we made it to the square.  “Stay here with David.  Daniella and Matthew, you can come with me if you’d like.”  I wasn’t sure where we were going, but if having two extra people there in case we bumped into any more crazy store owners helped my dad, I was in.  So unsure of our final destination, my brother and I followed my dad.  As it turns out, dad had found a police officer and was heading towards him.  The poor cop probably didn’t understand everything my dad said, but he managed to communicate to him to go back to the street where this happened and find another policeman or woman there... TO BE CONTINUED