I Took My Son to Kohl's for Jeans. I Left With a $125 Receipt and No Plans to return.

The Discount Maze

The register screen showed one hundred thirty-eight.

He stared at the number. His wife's coupon was still in his hand. Thirty percent. Before they left the house, they had done the math. Two pairs of jeans. A six-pack of underwear. Surely it would come down to around a hundred. His son stood beside him, turning a roll of mints from the register rack. He had turned it three times.

The cashier scanned the last item and looked up. One hundred thirty-eight. His wife handed over the coupon. The cashier took it, ran it under the scanner, and the screen jumped to one hundred twenty-five. Thirteen dollars off.

He asked, "Isn't the coupon thirty percent?"

The cashier said, "The jeans are a name brand. They don't participate."

He looked down at the coupon. The back was dense with tiny print, words lined up like ants. No Levi's. No Under Armour. No "premium." He asked, "Where does it say they don't participate?"

The cashier said, "Brands like Levi's and Under Armour, premium clothes, never participate."

He said, "Then how is a customer supposed to know?"

The cashier said, "Sorry."

The person behind them shifted forward. His son put the mints back on the rack. His wife said, "Forget it." He handed over the card and punched in the PIN. The receipt came out long.

Twenty minutes earlier, they were still in clearance.

The clearance racks were jammed together. Size tags hung on hangers: small on medium clothes, medium on large clothes, large on some size no one could name. He went through three racks and found one marked M. He pulled it out and held it up. The shoulders could have fit two of his wife. His son said, "Dad, that's too big." He said, "I know." He hung it back.

A woman beside him was digging too. After two tries, she took out her phone and photographed the rack. He heard her murmur, "How is anyone supposed to find anything?" No one answered. A clerk in the distance was folding a pile of sweaters someone had wrecked. She had just stacked one pile when a customer walked over, pulled out the bottom sweater, and the whole pile collapsed. The clerk looked at it and went on folding.

They gave up on clearance and went to the regular-price section. At least the sizes there were right. His son picked two pairs of jeans, one dark blue, one black. He grabbed a pack of underwear, six pairs, thirty-eight dollars. His wife said, "With the coupon, it should be all right." He said, "Mm."

In line, there were more than a dozen people ahead of them. Three registers were open. The other seven were dark. In the line, someone held an Amazon return box. Someone carried a plastic bag. Someone held nothing at all and stared down at a phone. A child sat in a shopping cart and cried. The mother dug a pack of crackers out of her bag, tore it open, and pushed it into the child's hands. The crying stopped for five seconds, then started again.

He stood there for twenty minutes. His son asked, "How much longer?" He said, "Soon." His wife scrolled through her phone and said, "People online say the credit card push here is annoying." He said, "Just don't sign up."

When their turn came, the cashier asked first, "Do you have a Kohl's card?" He said, "No." The cashier said, "Open one today and you can save another twenty percent." He said, "No, thanks." The cashier said, "It's fast. One minute." He said, "No." The cashier scanned an item and said, "Are you sure? Opening a card today is a good deal." He said, "I'm not interested." The cashier scanned the last item and said, "One hundred thirty-eight."

Then the coupon. Then one hundred twenty-five. Then "premium clothes never participate."

A few years ago, another trip came back to him. That time it was shoes. On the shoe rack, one shoe was a different size from the other. The price tag and the box did not match. He took two different sizes to a clerk. The clerk said, "Someone probably switched them." He said, "Don't you straighten them?" The clerk said, "We do, but there are too many customers." He left without buying anything. On the way out, his wife said, "Let's not come here again." He said, "Okay."

They came again anyway. Because of the coupon. Because of thirty percent. Because there was always the sense that this time might be different.

After they paid, they walked out. By the door was a row of shopping carts, their wheels locked together. His son said, "I'm hungry." He dug a flattened pack of saltines out of his pocket and handed it over. His son took it, tore it open, ate two. His wife folded the coupon and tucked it into her wallet. He said, "Throw it away." She said, "Maybe we can use it next time." He said, "There won't be a next time." She said nothing.

The parking lot wind was strong. He put the bags in the trunk. The cardboard tag from the jeans stuck out of the bag. He shut the trunk and got into the driver's seat. In the back seat, his son tore open the underwear package. The plastic crackled. His wife fastened her seat belt and said, "Let's go home." He started the car. The air conditioning blew out a puff of dust.

As they pulled out of the lot, he saw the Kohl's sign still lit. At the entrance, someone was carrying an Amazon box inside. The box was huge and blocked the top half of the person's body. Nearby, a clerk was wiping the glass doors. She wiped twice, stopped, and looked at her phone. On the glass door was a poster: Amazon returns accepted here. Under it was a line of small print. He did not read it.

The car reached the main road. His son said, "Dad, are we coming back?" He looked at the red light ahead and did not answer. The light turned green. He pressed the gas. In the rearview mirror, Kohl's shrank, then disappeared behind a gas station. In the cup holder by the passenger seat, the coupon was still wedged there, one corner curled up, trembling slightly in the air conditioning.