THE THEORY OF RETURNS

Scientists from University of Madison Ave believe that they have finally solved the question of how much money it costs to return a dress, and they are dubbing it the Theory of Inverted Reimbursement.

A returned dress is always counteracted with another purchase of greater value. The first law of reimbursement states that any in-store return of a frock always increases actual expenditure by at least 1.58x the dollar value of the original purchase. Second law dictates that the aggregate sum of the interest then accrued on original purchase, plus the cost of the new purchase upon return, minus the minutes spent on your lunch hour attempting to find a salesperson who will process returns without contempt, will incontrovertibly equal at least one-eighth of your annual salary. Adding a repeat 'return and purchase' as you take the escalator down 5 floors of strategically-placed merchandise, and continually find things more worthy than your previous purchase, can cause a robust reaction — a circular return/purchase/return/purchase loop, all within the same excursion, that can spiral until new inventory is depleted, security is called, or a black hole forms that swallows both your bank account and your sanity.

Online returns with enclosed return labels are impervious to these laws; returns that require a visit to the website to print a label and cite a reason for why you want to send back whatever inane purchase you clicked on during a slow part of The Crown, plus targeted commercial pop-ups, are equal to 3x the original expenditure, plus 40 minutes of one’s life, plus shipping fees.