It was in a long, slow line at the cashier’s station in the Macy’s Trim A Tree section last Saturday. The space is small, the place was packed, and the jostling was polite.

The cashier at the register was a big, calm woman with bright red hair. She had a certain authority about her and seemed to be the “go-to” gal in the department.

Those of us in the line were a captive audience to the saga of the blond-haired lady demanding some bargain deal which some other cashier could not get to ring up. We watched the saga from the initial complaint, to the consultation, through phone calls, and finally to resolution.

“For this customer only,” the red-haired cashier said, “the item is priced this way.”

The little bargain tree ornament drama was a pageant, not for the rejoicing celebrants of the Christmas season, but rather for those who mutter to the refrain that life is not always fair.

Special treatment is more often granted to those who demand it than those who deserve it.

And Monday morning, I morphed into one who demanded it.

I’m in a business deal where certain tasks fall to me to get done. One of those tasks is to get a disclosure form completed by the electric company.

The procedure at the electric company is that you fax in your request and the disclosure is faxed back to you within 5 to 7 business days. There is no phone number given to check on progress. The procedure requires faith. Usually, it works.

This time was the exception. I faxed and waited. Nothing. I faxed and waited. Still nothing. I got on the company’s website. I sent e-mails. Nothing. I sent more e-mails. Then a response saying the disclosure had been faxed to me. But I’d received nothing.

Yet now I had an e-mail whose address suggested I was dealing with a person, a person with a name - Renzina. And so, for two days I wrote e-mails to Renzina. I started polite, then demanding, then pleading. All I got was silence.

I stewed all weekend. And I kept looking at the form for ordering the disclosure, the form with no phone number but with an address. And a plan was hatched.

And so in the early morning hours this past Monday, in search of very special treatment, I set my navigation system with the destination of the electric company at 2100 Commercial Blvd., an address where customers are forbidden.

My field trip to the land of “employees only” took me to an industrial park of gray and drab and dated. Each building was a bunker with assigned parking spaces and security guards, locked doors and name badges required. “No trespassing” signs dotted the bleak landscape and I moved like a spy working a case.

I made it inside a building where a security guard named Ned gave me a hint as to where I might find help. It turned out that Ned would be my ticket to get inside.

Three buildings down I gained entry into the mothership of the organization. I did so by helping a lady with many shopping bags as she keyed entry into the building. Once inside, I was at the mercy of a security guard named Bob. It turns out Ned had called Bob and Ned had set the stage for quite the confusion. Bob understood from Ned that I was there for a meeting. Bob wanted me gone, didn’t know anyone named “Renzina” and so he got Amy from Human Resources. Since Ned had set my “appointment” up with Renzina, Amy made it her mission to locate Renzina, who, it turned out, was on the 3rd floor right above us.

Once found, Renzina exposed me over the phone for who I was, an intruder asking for special treatment. The vote was 2 (Bob and Renzina) to 1 (Amy) to throw me out on the “employee’s only” snow covered sidewalk. But Amy clearly was the authority figure and Renzina was given the task to produce the disclosure. Much to his consternation, Amy told Bob I could wait.

Bob lectured me for 30 minutes - off and on - as to the errors of my ways. Renzina stretched a one-minute task to its limits. And then Amy appeared -just like one of Santa’s elves and delivered the goods.

Special treatment, why it’s just not fair. But it is oh so sweet - when you don’t get thrown out the door by security.