Store Credit

Projector Hum · Oct 20, 2026 · 21m

Halloran and Pike is a hundred-year-old department store in downtown Dayton, Ohio. Its returns desk has always offered one perk, printed on a laminated card: bring a gift back with its gift receipt and you get store credit, and the person who gave it forgets they ever did. No awkward thank-yous. Dolores Kemper has worked that desk for forty-five years. She has never returned anything, and she always tucks a gift receipt in with the presents she gives. It's December 27th, the busiest returns day of the year. Her new floor manager has a target to hit, the line runs back past the escalators, and…