The key to a successful Home Depot trip is preparation. And I mean more preparation than it takes to go on a normal shopping excursion, which mostly means not having diarrhea. For starts, wear comfortable shoes. You’re going to be doing a shitload of walking on a cement floor. Also, eat before you leave the house. Something about the smell of lumber, or maybe it’s all the walking aimlessly for three goddamn hours while you carry a heavy-ass pine board, really works up an appetite. More on this later.
As you enter the Home Depot you will see some doors clearly marked as exits and some as entrances. This is a completely asinine system they’ve created to try and make you walk the entire breadth of the store, maybe to get you to change your mind about this whole thing. “See how fucking far this is? You’re going to do this at least twice? How far are you willing to go for patio stones?” The good news is that you can feel free to completely ignore these labels. This is the fault of stores who designate exits and entrances and then put automatic door sensors on both sides of the door. That’s a very mixed message, but I’d say that I trust the power and costly placement of the automatic sensor over some joker painting a four letters on a piece of glass.
There are two basic kinds of Home Depot visits, and you will know what kind you are making as soon as you walk in.
Type one is the type in which you have several things to buy, but you have a pretty good idea of what you need. You will know it is this type of visit because no fewer than three people in orange, pocketed aprons will ask if they can help you find anything. THIS IS A TRICK! Because they can’t help you. They would if they could, but they can’t. You can find this out by either asking to be pointed to something or by saying “I’m doing alright” and seeing the complete relief wash over their faces.
Visit type two is the type where you need one very specific item. For example, a washer or a valve stem for a sink. You will know it is this type of visit because you will walk into the building and think that the zombie apocalypse is already upon us, thorough the rampant stage with people running in the streets and onto the slower, death throes of humanity. Except for some reason all the hammers and axes are still in stock.
All I’m saying is, Good luck finding someone. You have about as much chance of finding someone as Charlie Brown has of getting his kite out of the tree, wrangling a three-way with whichever of the two girls aren’t his sister, and actually producing a laugh by the third panel.
And if you do happen to find someone, your issues haven’t ended. Something that becomes obvious real quick is that the folks at Home Depot are trained to walk you all the way to where your item is. So, if you ask where the washers are, like I did, they will walk you all the way across the goddamn store, in this case to the appliance section, at which point you have a laugh and say, “No, WASHERS. Not Washing Machines!” At which point the employee will tell you that they don’t sell washers, something that I knew couldn’t possibly be fucking true, but had to accept anyway before striking out on my own in search of washers. P.S., who the fuck is going to Home Depot to buy a washing machine? A grill, maybe, but a washing machine? What the fuck else do they have over there, pianos?
But it’s okay because I prefer to walk on my own. I don’t care if you are the slowest walker of all time or if you walk faster than a mobility scooter piloted by a Billy Bob at Old Country Buffet, whoever you walk with at Home Depot will not match your speed. If you’re in a hurry, they’re meandering, scuffing their feet on the floor the whole way to the point you’re surprised they haven’t worn a visible trail in the cement. On the other hand, it’s easy to feel casual, especially since it’s warm in there and the lights are always dialed down to a mood lighting that I would have used to hide horrific acne in high school, college, post-college, and my 35th birthday party. If you’re walking slow, guaranteed the dude helping you will be Barry Allen, Wally West, Jay Garrick- well, if you’re not in on the reference at this point, never mind.
Once you get where you’re going, the dude will always do exactly what it must say in the training manual: “Stare at wall of items while pointing finger vaguely in direction of merchandise. Mumble something about how you might not carry that item.”
Just as examples, here are some great pieces of advice I’ve received from Home Depot friends:
“A faucet handle puller? You mean a wrench?” –No, I did not mean a wrench. I meant a faucet handle puller. Which is what I asked for.
“Here’s what you want to do: Get the handle off, then you just have to turn this nut and get the stem out.” – Okay, great, but I wanted the goddamn puller so that I could pull the handle. ASS!
“Hmm…well…you know where I would look for those is maybe in….in Ace Hardware on 10th street.” Yeah, thanks. Don’t try and sell me anything. Although I have to hand it to the guy, he did, in fact, know where to find the item. Granted, it was not in his store at all, but I suppose I have to give some credit where credit is due.
Once you find a washer you’re looking for, you take it up to the self-checkout where they ask you to scan your items. Now, this being a washer too small to put a baby’s dick through, I don’t really expect it to have a barcode. But it would be pretty nice if they had some way of pricing these things other than, “Do you remember how much it cost?” And do you know what I’m going to say whenever someone asks that, regardless of whether I’m buying a washer or a flatscreen? “I think it was like ten cents.” Then the lady will ask, “What size is it?” Well, that’s a worse goddamn question than how much. 3/72? 5/88? Maybe if you didn’t pick such bizarre fucking fractions I would have a better idea. How about this, washer, bolt, screw, and nail makers: How about you make it 16/72 of an inch or whatever, and then you just call that a “1.” And then I’ll just go based on number. Believe me, I’m eyeballing the shit anyway, so it’s not going to make much of a difference.
Then you get to the one good part, the one part they run right. The Hot Dog cart. For some reason, the best hot dogs come from the shittiest setups. If there’s not a big umbrella shooting from the top of whatever you cook your hot dogs in, I’m not interested.
I get up to the cart and the lady, the motherfucker, says, “What can I get youI’malloutofhotdogs.” Out of hot dogs? Are you kidding me right now? What do you think, I’m going to order a goddamn Polish from you and drive home looking like I’m eating a burst dick? Or hey, maybe a brat? That sounds really great now that it’s so dry it looks like a finger that’s been cut from a corpse and put in a food dehydrator. You fucking bitch. You ruined my whole day.
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