Tric Kearney: I’m not sure why I’m slow to return goods, but sometimes, even when I do, things go badly

YESTERDAY, I sterilised my kitchen, or at least cleaned it magnificently. While doing so, I found a receipt in a jug, put there two weeks ago and instantly forgotten. It was for runners I’d bought for my daughter’s birthday. She seems to have rare feet as once again they were the wrong size.

Delighted with the prospect of getting my money back I broke into song, only to remember shoe shops’ strange policy, no returns without the box. Unfortunately, that box was in the procession of a pupil in my daughter’s class. Tempted as I was, it would have been wrong to rip out their project and reclaim it.

The too-small runners would just have to join: The shirt which doesn’t fit, but I’d pulled off the tags; the shorts I must have been blind buying; the top I imagined would look like it did on the stick model; the expensive jeans I’ve to be poured into but live in hope one day they’ll fit; and numerous other rejected goods never returned.