On Thursday, the new Kohl’s catalogue came in the mail, and with it, came the standard discount coupon, 10%, 20% or 30% off. Whoo hoo…30% off!! I called my mom to go with me, as I often do. Let’s face it, regardless of how good a dad I think I am, I will still never be as cool as I think I am. It helps to have a female’s perspective when getting them new clothes.

Mom had taken Dylen to a skin care party at my sister-in-law’s house for the morning so Rhyen & I met them at Kohl’s on the Rock Road. Dylen is fairly easy to pick clothes out for – you point her to anything with skirts and the colors pink & purple, and she’s happy. Rhyen on the other hand is like a dog doing the pee pee dance – around and around we go until she finds the perfect blend of cool, punk and tomboy. I had already gone into the changing room once for Dylen and she was walking around with Nene looking for a dress. Rhyen and I had a stack of clothes to try on so we headed back to the changing room.

As Rhyen was trying on her clothes, Dylen came back with Nene and was trying on a dress. The changing room wasn’t labeled men or women, so I was standing inside the hallway. My mom is standing down a few doors and she proceeds to tell me that someone took Dylen’s changing room and they were waiting to get into the room to get her clothes out. I got a little irate about this because Mom said she didn’t say anything to the woman in the room and were just waiting patiently until she came out. I’m not that nice and was trying to make sure the woman heard me as I spoke loudly of how rude it was for her to take a little girl’s room. Just then, a Kohl’s store employee came into the hallway and asked that I leave the women’s changing room because a woman felt uncomfortable going into a room with me in the hallway. I tried to tell her that I was there for my daughters and that someone had taken her room with her clothes, but she was insistent. So I stood out of the hallway and let my Mom take care of it.

After a few minutes, Mom came out and said Dylen’s clothes were not in the room. I was losing my patience (as little as that was). Another employee helped my Mom look for the clothes in all the rooms, thinking maybe Dylen had made a mistake about which room she was in. We waited for each room to open, and still no clothes. At this point, I was beginning to get upset. The employees were running around looking for the clothes, checking all of their baskets to make sure that none of them accidentally picked up the clothes thinking they were new ones to be put back. Dylen meanwhile was running around wearing a long sun dress. I called her over to me and lifted the bottom of the dress (that hung to the ground) to expose her feet. Yep, she was wearing her boots. I considered asking her why she put her boots back on after taking her clothes off, but I thought, at least her shoes weren’t stolen.

The search went on for nearly an hour, and I was more than ready to leave. The supervisor at Kohl’s finally said she was very sorry and asked if she could walk Dylen up to the front and pay for the outfit she was wearing. The woman took my name, phone number and a description of the outfit she was wearing. She said she would call me if for some reason the clothes turned up. I was skeptical and could only think, “What kind of sick freak would steal a little girl’s clothes from a changing room in a department store??”. I realize that Kohl’s had nothing to do with Dylen’s clothes being stolen and I certainly am not unreasonable enough to think that it’s their responsibility to keep track of her things while in the changing room; Kohl’s paying for a new outfit was a simple extension of true customer service.

As much as I wanted to leave, each of the girls still needed a pair of shoes. It took another 30 minutes or so to pick up Tony Hawk size 4s and some Twinkle Toes. We made our way to the front of the store, paid for the clothes, and made our way into Snowmageddon Part Deux (yes, by this time there was at least 2 inches on the ground). We sat in the Jeep for a few minutes to get warmed up and let the snow melt off the windshield. Just then, my phone rang with an unknown phone number. I reluctantly answered it, and the woman on the other end said she was from Kohl’s and had found my daughter’s clothes. She explained that a woman had mistakenly picked them up when she gathered her clothes and put them in the bottom of her cart. I wanted to be grateful, but I also wanted to find that woman and point a finger in her face like a mother and say “Well if you hadn’t been so rude as to take someone else’s room, we wouldn’t be in this problem”.

I could give you a lot of different spins on a moral here, but the one that should really stand out is this. Kohl’s Department store went above and beyond today to make up for a bad situation that they didn’t cause. There were at least 5 employees turning every stone in the changing rooms to find Dylen’s clothes. In the end, the simple gesture of paying for a $20 dress reinforced my decision to continue shopping at Kohl’s. Expect Great Things.

P.S. While I waited for employees to search the changing rooms, I was, of course, tweeting and facebooking. Kohl’s nearly immediately responded to my tweets. I have no doubt that had the manager not already agreed to pay for her clothes, the social media team at @Kohls_Official would have taken care of us. Here’s a link to the tweet from Kohl’s.