In Japan, returning something to a store is like asking for a divorce. You need a reason. You need the receipt. You need the original box, the tags, and a face that shows you have suffered. My coworker Sugiyama has done it once in his life. In 2011. He still thinks about it. Last month, our company sent him to Delaware for two weeks. On his first day, he learned Delaware has no sales tax. He assumed every store was having a sale, out of kindness, because he was new. On his second day, he bought a dress shirt. It did not fit. He did not sleep for two nights. On the third day, he prepared. Receipt. Box. Tags. The shirt, refolded along its original lines. A written explanation in English, which he practiced in the hotel mirror. He wore a suit. To return a shirt. The sign above the counter said RETURNS. Behind it stood a woman named Tameka. Around fifty. Reading glasses on a beaded chain. Sugiyama bowed and began. "I am deeply sorry. This shirt did not fit. The fault is entirely mine. I misjudged my own body. I have caused your store great inconvenience, and I—" "Sure thing, hon," Tameka said. She was already scanning it. "Any reason?" He started his speech over from the beginning. Tameka took off her glasses. "Baby. Ten minutes ago, a man returned a lawnmower with the grass still in it." Sugiyama turned around and looked at the line behind him. What he saw there, he says, changed his understanding of mankind. A woman returning a candle. Half burned. "It smells different at home." A man returning a garden hose because it was too long. An old man returning one sock. "The other one's fine." A woman returning a houseplant. Not wilted. Dead. Brown. Crispy. She said, "It didn't work out." They gave her a new one. She said thank you. The plant said nothing. Nobody apologized. Nobody bowed. Nobody brought a box. And every single one of them walked away forgiven. Inside Sugiyama, the entire Japanese economy fainted. In Japan, a sale is a marriage. In America, it's a first date. And somewhere in the back of every big store in this country, there is a desk whose only job is forgiveness. It's next to the restrooms. It's open until ten. Tameka handed him the next size up. And a coupon. And a mint from a little bowl he hadn't noticed. Sugiyama bowed again. "Thank you for forgiving me." Tameka looked at him over her glasses for a long time. "Honey. There's nothing to forgive. It's a medium." Then, without thinking, she bowed back. He came home to Tokyo last week. He kept the receipt. It's in his wallet now, behind the photo of his kids. He says it's the only document he has ever owned that says he's allowed to change his mind. The new shirt doesn't fit either. He wears it anyway. He says he couldn't do that to Tameka twice.