Adventures at Home Depot

Actually, anonymous (Pat), I already thought of Home Depot......

After looking at more tile than I ever really wanted to see in my lifetime (do they really need twenty shades of white?), I decided to check out Home Depot, which turned out to be half the price, but ten times the aggravation (who would have thought that was possible?).

Once there, I headed right for the tile section where I quickly selected my tile (brown). Now, I just needed some help with how many boxes...Hmmm. Except for three other do-it-yourselfers, who were also wandering around with dazed looks on their faces, there was no one to help.

After roaming around the area for a bit, I finally spotted two guys in orange vests who were next door in the kitchen section, chatting about football. Barely pausing in their discussion to acknowledge my presence, they told me that they didn't know anything about tile (why would anyone working in the kitchen section know anything about tile?) and told me to go see the woman at the desk up in the carpeting department. Of course...carpeting, tiles, it's all the same thing. Why didn't I think of that myself?

Mildly irked, I approached the desk where there was indeed a woman...sitting and eating popcorn with another guy...who saw me coming and called out, "I'm with someone. I can't help you."

Okaaaay. Biting back the dozen or so things I really wanted to say, I asked her if there was someone else who might be able to (like, I don't know, and employee who actually showed up to work? -- or maybe I should have offered to go get the butter and find better seats before the movie started).

Obviously not pleased that I wouldn't just go away (I think the folded arms, narrowed eyes, flaring nostrils and tapping foot gave her a clue), she reluctantly paged someone to meet me back in the tile section.

Ten minutes of mentally composing my speech for the store manager later, a guy wandered back, looked around and started to leave. The fool. Did he think he could escape that easily? After practically pinning him to the shelves with my cart to prevent his escape, he admitted that he had been sent by the woman, but told that it was a guy that needed help.

A guy !!! Okay, the store manager was definitely hearing about this. By the way, he worked in lighting, so he knew nothing about tile either, and didn't really know why she paged him. Oh, and good luck finding the store manager. He personally hadn't seen him since he'd been hired years ago. As a matter of fact, most of the employees were sure that the manager was really only an urban myth.

After talking me down from the ceiling, he told me that, despite everything, he would help me, if I didn't mind the fact that he had no clue what he was doing. Or, he could page someone else.... Fearing that my nerves couldn't take it, and knowing that the nearest Lowes was in the next state, I agreed to let him try.

Twenty minutes of the most excruciatingly convoluted calculations followed. Einstein did less figuring to come up with his theory of relativity. But at last I had eight boxes of tile loaded into my cart and the promise that I could return any unused portion (like that was worth anything!). To say the guy sprinted away from me down the aisle would be to underplay how fast he actually was going, but if there had been an Olympic scout in the area.......

Next came the paint. Again, the color was selected in mere minutes, but again, no one was at the paint desk. Hmmm. Where would I go for paint? The garden department perhaps? How about Hardware? By now, my patience had completely evaporated (okay, so it had done so half an hour earlier), and I was not in the mood to try and figure out their little system. Grabbing a cashier (I figured they were easy prey being trapped behind the register), I growled, "Help in paint. Now!"

Giving me the same look you see in horror movies when someone realizes that there actually are such things as vampires and werewolves (right before they get their throat torn out), the girl backed away and paged someone. This time, however, I stayed with her until the person showed up.

Returning to the paint department, I was hailed as a hero by the other poor souls waiting there. Even at the register a few minutes later, I had people asking me how long it had taken me to accomplish my mission. That they were not surprised when I replied that I had been twenty years old when I came there pretty much sums up the Home Depot experience.

So, yes, Pat. I went to Home Depot, and it was a completely different experience than I had at the design center (which, by the way, is also a Home Depot). Surprise!