Where the hell is it?

I spent about 30 minutes this afternoon looking for a receipt I had in  my hand when I walked into the kitchen. But suddenly it wasn't there.

That's ridiculous, I thought, It has to be here. Where did it go? What's the big deal, you ask.

Here's the back story: the receipt was from our supermarket and it should have shown we had reached the purchase threshold that entitled us to a free turkey for Thanksgiving. But when we checked out the total was further from the threshold than when we started.

Not possible. So we went to customer service and the attendant looked up our account. She said we had been credited with a return of $160 TODAY in a branch store more than 90 miles south.

This called for a chat with the manager. He was very nice and explained that all to often people who don't have a store card use a phone number to verify their account. Unfortunately, today someone chose to use ours. The manager also said this was not uncommon. He gave us credit for the turkey and, at his suggestion, we changed the phone number associated with our account.

As a courtesy, I called the store that refunded someone $160 and told him they used a false phone number. The manager gave me what I interpreted as a verbal shrug, saying, "it happens."

So that explains my anxiety about the receipt, which we finally found. And the free turkey is heading for a food bank.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, except the phone number thief.