Wednesday, April 15, 2009

A Trip to the Beep-Beep Store

Ever since our kids were small, they hated going to the hardware store, especially Home Depot. They were hyper-sensitive to the loud beep-beep-beeping of the reversing fork lifts. Hence, we have dubbed it the Beep-Beep store ever since. Last Sunday, my partner and I ventured to the Beep-Beep store to get spring fertilizer and other garden supplies. In particular, we are planning a small raised bed for the garden and wanted to get the appropriate landscape timbers and other stuff to bang it together. Plans? Who needs stink'in plans? There is nothing some BFN's, (Big frigg'n nails) can't build.

I was in my best macho presentation, in accordance with an agreement that my partner and I have made and I am doing my best to adhere to until later this spring when my son graduates from school. Thing is, short of gluing on a fake beard and taking some tips from the drag king world, I tend to be failing miserably at being taken for a guy. Without fail, every clerk in Home Depot went out of there way to say "Welcome Ladies" or ask "Is there anything you girls were looking for in particular?" Thankfully, my partner is a good sport about this, especially since full time is only a month or two away.

After lapping the store the requisite 6 times looking for things on our list, we found the landscape timbers and decided what size to make the raised garden. This was going to involve cutting some of the timbers in two places each to make the shorter pieces for the width of the box. We found the saw operator, and after complaining that anything more than one cut was a "project cut" and he would do it this time as a special favor. Condescending asshole! He further went on to explain that this was Home Depot policy in order to sell more power tools. This made me really pine for old-time hardware stores!

Next, as we were searching the nail section for 5" BFN's, a salesman approached us. Did you know that you can get 4" nails and 6" nails, but nothing in between? We asked him for alternative assembly methods and he went on to diagram a plan using Lincoln-log design, pinned together with re-bar. All we needed was a power drill, an 18" spade bit, a circular saw, a cutting disk, some 10' lengths of re-bar and a grinding bench to put a point on the re-bar spikes. (Not to mention the pickup truck to haul all of this stuff).

I explained that my tool of choice was a hammer. He looked at my partner and said that, "The ladies approach will work, but..." and went on to explain the 30 year life-span of his solution. We blew this guy off, talk about trying to sell tools! I bought some pre-cut wooden stakes. Good 'ol Dracula technology rides again!

I guess the point of this pointless post is how I felt treated as a woman at Home Depot. Everything was a big favor and everything needed more tools, whose use I really wouldn't understand. How hard is it to slap some landscape timbers together and fill the box with dirt? Apparently, according to Home Depot, it is a two-weekend, $300 project. We spent $22, it looks great...

CiCi

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