Heavyweight - Heavyweight Short: Returns and Reformers

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

In her year off, Stevie had a lot of time to wait on hold. And Kalila took a hard look at not wanting to be looked at.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pushkin. You're listening to an iHeart podcast. Hello. Hello. Hi. Hi. Kalila Holt. Stevie Lane.

Senior producer of Heavyweight. Your managing producer? Is that your title? Yeah, something like that. We have some stories for the people today. We do. We each have a story for the people. Who should go first?

Great question. Thank you. I'm an interviewer. I think we should rock paper scissors for it. Okay. On shoot? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Are we going to say it? Well, I think we have to say it. For its audio. So it'll be like rock paper scissors shoot and then you say either rock paper scissors. You don't say rock paper, says shoot? No.

Why would a rock and a paper and a scissors can't talk? This is the way though we grew up doing it. Rock, paper, scissors, says shoot. It just sounds better. I think it's weird. Rock, paper, scissors, shoot. It's an easy beat. Okay.

Rock, paper, scissors, shoot, paper. Oh, uh oh. wow. Oh my God. We're so in line. Yeah. All right. I guess we have to do it again. Rock, paper, scissors, shoot, rock. Are you kidding? This is going terribly. Okay, okay, okay. Come on, come on. Rock, paper, scissors, shoot, paper. Come on! Also, I feel like we're doing the rock, paper, scissors part so slow, it's like a funeral dirt.

Okay, let's try. Here we go. Rock, paper, scissors, shoot, paper. Scissors. Alright, there we go. Alright, I guess my grandma's house. And, as always, she insisted on feeding us, even though we had dinner reservations in like an hour. So along with the nuts and crackers and lukewarm spanacopita bites, my grandma had gotten this fruit salad from Whole Foods, one of those pre-made ones in the big plastic tubs. So we're all eating it, and about two thirds of the way through it,

someone notices that a little bit of the fruit at the bottom, just like a strawberry or two, had gone bad. And we were like, you know, whatever, we can just pick around it. But my grandma was like, no, stop, don't touch it. I'll return it. And we were all like, grandma, what are you talking about?

We've already eaten most of it. Like, they're not going to take it back now. But my grandma was like, no, it's rotten. It was expensive. I'm returning it. So the next day, my grandma marches into Whole Foods head straight for customer service. And she proceeds to make up this whole story about how she and my grandpa had my grandpa's boss and his wife over for a

luncheon. Like as though it's the 1950s or something when people invited their bosses over on Sundays for luncheons. Also, my grandma is 90 years old. Like, there's no way this woman's husband still works. What is he, a lamplighter? But anyway, she says, you know, her husband's boss came over for lunch, and she served the fruit basket. And the boss's wife noticed that the fruit was moldy. And my grandma was so embarrassed, just like mortified.

She ended up taking the boss and his wife out for lunch instead, spent $50 on a whole meal for them. And she's like, I am a loyal customer. I come here every week to buy these little biscotti crackers you carry that my husband just loves. They're not cheap, by the way. But this fruit incident absolutely spoiled our afternoon and I really think you ought to make it right.

Okay, here's what my grandma walked out of Whole Foods with. A full refund for the original fruit basket, a new fruit basket to replace the one that had gone bad, a $50 gift card to help cover the cost of the imaginary luncheon, and a whole case of those little biscotti crackers, absolutely free. I have a theory that there are two kinds of people in this world.

Returners and non-returners. Grandma Ruth, returner. Whatever gene carries a strong sense of justice paired with a distinct lack of shame and love of, say, dramaturgy, she's got it. And it's a gene she's passed down to me. I'm also a returner. I think I feel about customer service issues

the way some people must feel about hunting for sport. It's a challenge. It's a thrill. How can I prove I purchased it here when I've lost my receipt? What buttons do I press to get a live representative on the line, climbing my way through the phone tree like some kind of frantic phone monkey? Sure, it's not always the most logical use of my time. I'm still fighting a years-long battle with a Spanish railroad company for a refund on a train that was four hours delayed. At this point, I've probably spent more time on the phone with them than I spent waiting for the train

in the first place. But it's the principle of the thing. The thing being the money. The principle of the money. La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la. Come on, can I scoot you a little closer, huh? The principle of the money. Come on, scoot you a little closer, huh? I just ate some egg salad. I don't know how close you want me to be. This is Han, my partner, a staunch non-returner. Han's the sort of good-natured, mild-mannered person who might order their egg salad without the celery,

then get an egg salad just stuffed with celery and not say anything. Or see that they were charged for an extra beer on a busy night at a bar, but pay the whole tab, plus a stranger's, just to be nice. Or get wrongfully charged by Amazon for hair cream and do nothing about it. Oh no. Are we doing this? Here's what happened. Han ordered two containers of their favorite hair styling cream from Amazon. But when the package arrived,

it was empty. Sealed, untampered with, but empty. Instead of contacting Amazon though to say, you know, like, hey, you sent me nothing, they just went ahead and ordered two more hair creams. And so the second you arrive and they're like all dried up, like the way that peanut butter gets like halfway through when it's lost a lot of the oil, that's what it was like. So hand through those hair creams away, order two more, and for those of you keeping count, we're up to four hair creams that they paid for, but did not get or could not use. How expensive is this hair goop?

$21.25. Each per goop? Per goop, I think, yeah. So that's like $84 more than you were supposed to spend on this stuff. Yeah. And you didn't like call? No, I don't know how to get in contact with them.

Here's how to get in contact with them. Simply Google Amazon customer service phone and dial the number. So what's the real issue here? I mean, I think it comes down to like wanting to be liked by everybody and like being a people pleaser because of that. And sticking up for yourself is definitely at odds with pleasing people. That's true. To be a returner, sometimes you have to be the bad guy.

For people like Han, good, well-liked, people-pleasy people, that's hard to swallow. But I want Han to learn to stick up for themself. I want to show them how easy and satisfying it is. I want to teach Han how to be a returner. And returning the hair goops is the ideal tutorial. There's just one potential obstacle. Do you want me to tell you when it was placed? I can pull it up really easy.

Amazon's 30-day return policy. You're scrolling very far right now. It was a really old order. As in 10 months old, almost a year past the return window. Yeah, it's a little late to be asking Amazon. You know, there's like a lot of things working against you on this one. Thank you for contacting Amazon. When I call Amazon a few days later, I spend the first 10 minutes or so trying to get a real-life person on the line.

My usual hack, where I just keep hitting zero like a lab rat demanding cocaine, doesn't work. But finally, the seven magic words. I'll get someone to help with this. The problem with the someone when she comes on the phone is that she can't find hands order in the system. She tells me it must be a glitch on her end and that I should hang up and call back.

But if I call back, do I have to wait on hold again and everything? Um, no. Will it be you? Um, just provide the order number right away. But are you going to pick up the phone or will it be the robot? Hello? Welcome to Amazon customer service.

It's the robot. But eventually. Hi, thank you for calling Amazon customer service. This is Danica. I explained to my new customer service rep, Danica, about the dried up creams. 15 minutes later she's processed a replacement. It's that easy. Then I tell her about the first two creams that never arrived, which I'd like to be refunded for also. Our system here is not allowing anymore to process the refund because it was already

being passed return window. So we don't have any options here. A thought flashes through my mind. WWGD. What would grandma do? You know, just because I'm a loyal customer, you know, and I've been with you guys for so long, is there any way that we can get a refund for the amount as a credit on my Amazon account? Let me just double check it here. I'm sorry. One second. Sure. Okay, um, yes, I successfully your process this to ask a promotional credit for the full

amount. Oh, thank you. I really, I really appreciate You were really helpful today. All right. Have a great day ahead, and bye for now. OK, yeah, you too. Bye. OK, thank you so much.

Bye. Off the phone, I start fantasizing about telling Han what I've done. They didn't think I could do it, and I have. They're going to be so happy with me. I've really done a good thing here today. Hello, you can now end the call. Oh, I have to end it?

Oh, you can't end it? Oh, okay. Sorry about that. Sorry. Thank you so much. Bye. Hey, how's it going? Come on. Alright, bye. Hey, how's it going? How did it go? I tell Han how easy it was. How all I had to do was call and wait and talk to a first representative, then call back and wait, then talk to someone else, then get the first refund, then negotiate for the promotional credit, which was a pretty baller move on my part,

I think. But Han is not as jazzed about it as I thought they'd be. All they can really muster is a somewhat forced... Damn, Steve. Good job. And then a much more genuine... Sounds like Amazon has some very good customer service. Yeah. Yeah. Um...

Do you feel good about... is there like a feeling of relief about it? Um... I... already got over it, you know? I got over it many, many months ago. The tutorial was a complete failure. I'd wanted to show Han that it's worth it to be a returner. I'd wanted them to feel how gratifying it is. I'd wanted them to share in my delight. Simply, I'd wanted them to care. Hello?

Grandma? Yes? So instead, I call someone who will care. Ha ha ha ha ha. Pretty good, right? Absolutely. I just should have gotten more. Ha ha ha ha ha.

I told Han, and they were sort of like, I don't really care. I think this is a bigger deal to you than to me. And it made me think like, what do you think it is about us that makes us care about this more than other people do? Well, I don't know. I think it's not an unusual feeling to want to be reimbursed for harm done. But not everyone has to feel the same way about things. Did Grandpa care about this stuff as much as you? No, no, I didn't. He was not usually involved. He let me take care of it. I don't think he really cared.

My grandfather passed away a few years ago. You know, Grandpa and I were very different. Generally, I think he took things a little easier than I. But it worked. We kind of gave, well, you have to give and take in relationship, Stevie. You have to give and take. There are two kinds of people in this world,

returners and non-returners. And sometimes if they're lucky, they find each other. Absolutely. Yes, yes. We had a very unusual relationship because look how long it lasted. Yeah. 74 years.

Who stays together 74 years? Han and I have not been together 74 years, but I hope that we are. And I know it means I'll be the one always bothering the waiter. I'll have to point out the extra charges on checks. But it's a small price to pay. Han calls me their send-it-back girlfriend, and though they say it in jest, it actually makes me feel proud. I love them. I'd send a thousand egg salads back for them.

My grandparents aren't all that religious, didn't belong to a temple. But when my grandfather died, my grandma wanted a service. So my family found a rabbi and a local synagogue. My grandma paid to reserve the synagogue's main sanctuary, a room with big windows and a beautiful view where the proceedings were to be held. But the night before the service, a pipe burst and the main sanctuary flooded. When we arrived, we found out we would be in the synagogue's library room instead, which though perfectly fine, was more of an all-purpose room lined with bookshelves. The one window, I remember, looked out onto the parking lot.

I was expecting this nice room and that's what I wanted, so I was disappointed. I wanted the funeral to be special, because daddy was special. So as we all filed in for my grandfather's service, my grandmother refused to step one foot over the threshold. She crossed her arms and raised her chin. She asked to speak to someone in charge. And then, in what I see as her final act of love for my grandfather, my grandmother got his $800 funeral absolutely free. After the break, Khalilah takes a risk. In high school, I, like many children across our dilapidated nation, was forced to take the Presidential

Fitness Test. It was actually a series of tests, dating back to the Eisenhower administration and possibly designed by Dwight D. himself during breaks from the space race. We took the Presidential Fitness Test once at the beginning of the year and then again at the end, the idea being that after nine months of school-sponsored exercise, school-sponsored lunches, and backpacks weighed down with school-sponsored textbooks, we'd be stronger. There was a test to count your sit-ups and another to count your push-ups. My number of push-ups was always zero. At the end of my sophomore year, I begged my gym partner

to write down, one. Just one push-up. That would be dishonest, she said, thinking a big zero on the page. But the worst was a waking nightmare called the Pacer Test. The gym teacher would put on this recording, a series of progressively faster beeps, and we all had to run across the gym in one big herd before the next beep sounded. When you couldn't do it anymore, you peeled away from the pack and you sat down. I'd get tired almost immediately, but the idea of singling myself out as the worst in

the class, with everyone watching and smirking, was more than I could take. It was a feeling that persisted throughout my youth, this fear of being exposed as the weakest one in the room. I really wanted to be sporty. I went through a whole tomboy phase. For me, this just meant reading historical baseball novels, deciding I liked teams named after birds, and circulating a petition called Get Shoeless Joe Jackson into the Hall of Fame. I simply wasn't athletic. During my short-lived career in youth softball, someone hit a pop fly right at me.

I watched as the ball arced through the air, and then I just stood there, stock still, as it landed at my feet with a plop. Okay, the coach sighed. When the ball comes, try to, you know, catch it. It wasn't until my adulthood that I realized I actually like exercising. I just don't like being perceived exercising, and throughout my childhood the two went hand in hand. But with a little privacy, moving is fun.

I realized that I like hiking when I'm alone and not panting. Sorry, go ahead guys, I'm alone and not panting, sorry go ahead guys I'm gonna stop and check out this moss. I like yoga when I'm in the back row and the teacher doesn't look at me. I like dance cardio when I pull it up on a video in my bedroom and tell my partner under no circumstances enter this bedroom if the house is on fire let me burn. But I'm only able to do these things because I'm not visible. There's this whole other realm of fitness that I continue to avoid, these classes that seem all about being visible.

They're taken by toned women with blown out hair and the right kind of trendy water bottle. Women who would truly wrinkle their noses at me, smelling my weakness like one of those animals… gerbils? That devour their runtiest children. There's spin, there's bar, and at the top of this glamorous, impossible-seeming pyramid of exercise is Pilates. Charlene starts posting all these Instagram stories about Pilates. Charlene is my friend from high school, and we're very different people. She works a high paying finance job

and is constantly taking videos in nightclubs, whereas I was just laid off from an industry in collapse and only take videos of cats and fish. Even so, we're close. I'm curious about Pilates, I respond to a recent story, but it terrifies me. She says we have to go to a class together. On the one hand, it feels safer to go with Charlene. I'll be able to look at her to know what to do. On the other hand, she'll be able to look at me and judge me and think with pity in her heart about me.

Wow, that's sad. We pick a day. I am locked in. It turns out I know nothing about Pilates. I've been thinking about it as harder yoga for hot people, but Pilates is actually done on a large device called a reformer. When I go to the website for the studio we'll be attending, I'm excited to see a tab called New Timers, which isn't the expression first timers, but it just tells me I will need grip socks available for purchase $ 15 to $20.

We push up to become better, the site tells me. We plank to become stronger. We lunge deeper so we can climb over the steepest hill to see the beauty on the other side. When I go to book my spot, I realize with horror that there is no back row for me to hide in. There is only one long, first row.

Also, Pilates is expensive. To take a single class costs more than a movie ticket, while also being shorter and more painful than a movie. Plus, no one ever tells you to buy grip socks to see a movie. When I'm texting Charlene, I notice that my phone keeps auto-correcting Pilates so that the P is capitalized. This, I discover, is because Pilates is named after a man, Joseph Hubertus Pilates. In the black and white pictures I find online, he's a compact fellow with a tuft of white hair and a twinkle in his eye,

kind of like a really ripped Rumpelstiltskin. He invented Pilates while in an internment camp on the Isle of Man. This is so shocking to me that I start bringing it up to everyone I meet. I'm suddenly obsessed with talking about Pilates, and I haven't even taken the class yet. ["Pilates in the Hall of the Mountain King"]

Hi, my name's Kalila Holt. I've never been here before. The studio staff welcomed me warmly, but while I'm checking in, I notice that the picture on their brochure is a bunch of people holding a plank over a chasm of empty space. When I find my machine, it looks like something between a gynecologist's table and a printing press, if either of those things had about five times more knobs. The instructor comes over and starts pointing. This is the carriage, this is the back kick pad. When I say two red, one gray, pull on these springs.

When I say toes five six, you put your feet here. I nod like I'm following. Other women begin to arrive. They all seem to have gotten the memo that you're meant to come to Pilates in a tasteful athleisure set, where your sage-toned sports bra matches your sage-toned leggings. I, meanwhile, am wearing a t-shirt stained with fake blood from an old Halloween costume. By the time Charlene walks in looking fresh off and outing to Lululemon, I'm perched on the end of the reformer, afraid to touch anything for fear of somehow getting my hand stuck.

Hey, cries Charlene. Ready to be a Pilates girly? Pilates is a little like boot camp, if instead of preparing for war, you're preparing to look hot. The instructor shouts at us through a loud mic that's hard to hear under the blasting tones of songs like Naman Khor and other such hits from middle school dances past.

I'm used to yoga, where they go on and on about how there's no judgment and you can rest at any time. If you try to rest in Pilates, the instructor berates you on her loud mic by going, come on, you have to try. The whole thing is baffling. Because I don't understand any of it, I mostly try to copy Charlene.

The good news is that every time we switch to a new move, it takes me so long to figure out what's happening that I don't have to hold it for very long. We move our arms to lift a weighted part of the machine. We plank, we lunge, we squat, lunge, plank, squat, lunge again but differently, plank again but on the back this time. Every time the instructor walks by, I get nervous that she might tell me I'm doing something wrong, which I almost certainly am. I know that this is normal and that she's here to teach, but still, all

I can think is, don't look at me. At one point, she tells us to look up towards the wall, and I do. Great, Kalila, she says on her mic, and I'm filled with a swell of pride. And then she announces it is time for push-ups. And for the first time in my life, I overcome my long history of humiliation, and I manage to do a perfect push-up. Just kidding, I tactfully take a water break and I skip the push-ups altogether. And that's our class, the instructor says. I'm surprised it's already over. Charlene turns to look at me, spritzed tastefully in sweat.

That, she says, was the hardest class I've ever taken. On my way out, they hand me one of the brochures with the people planking. You did great today, the instructor tells me, which I know is not true, but I guess I did do that wall-looking thing. I'm surprised by how good I feel, like I've tapped into my body's potential. I imagine it's much the same way a mother might feel as she finds the strength to lift a car off her child. Only, in this case, the car is a routine fitness class and the child is myself. Charlene and I step outside into the sun.

I was really struggling, she says. I didn't notice, I tell her. Well, yeah, she says, as we start walking. It's so hard that all your focus has to be on what you're doing. You only look at other people to make sure you're doing the right move. It's true, I realize. When you're holding a plank over a chasm of empty space, the only thing you're thinking about is how hard it is to keep holding the plank and how you don't want to fall into

the chasm of empty space. Who has the stamina to be judgmentally glancing all around? Not me. I didn't notice a single other person the whole class. Which means, in all likelihood, no one noticed me either. This episode of Heavyweight was produced by me, Khalilah Holt. And me, Stevie Lane, along with Phoebe Flanagan. Our executive producer is Jonathan Goldstein. Our production counsel is Jake Flanagan.

Jake Gorski mixed the episode with original music by Christine Fellowes, John K. Sampson, Blue Dot Sessions, Sean Jacoby, Michael Hurst, and Bobby Lord. Additional scoring by Aaron Paul Low. I'd like to give a special thanks to my Pilate studio because I love it now. Follow us on Twitter at Heavyweight, Instagram at Heavyweight Podcast, or email us at heavyweight at pushkin.fm. Jonathan will be back here next week with a brand new episode about what he did in his year off. So tune in. Great episode, Kalila. Great episode, Stevie.