So, we started out this morning with all of our vinyl (that would be about 18, 15-80lb ea rolls) falling over and nearly taking out Jamie. Since James and I had been discussing making a big vinyl rack to hold all the rolls, and james was already running out for an errand we decided to go buy supplies for the rack today. I just don’t want to have to explain to Jamie’s, or any of the other employees’, parents that they were killed by three 80 lb rolls of vinyl falling on them.
So off to home depot, my already *favorite* store on the planet we went. First we stopped at hardware sales (if you don’t know about this place it is a truly amazing hardware store in bellingham. James used to work there, many years ago now, so it isn’t quite as amazing to us, but they do manage to stock something like 150,000 different items. You could get lost for weeks in their aisles, and no one would find you, yet it is probably 25% the square footage of a depot or lowes). We went up to pay our account there and ask a question, and of course since they allow dogs we brought Lucy (our baby pug) in with us. She is rather easily scared anyway, and hardware sales can scare the best of us, so she was clinging like mad to my bare neck. Then, Alta, the 94 or 95 year old owner asked if she wanted a cookie. Having seen a couple large dog cookie buckets around I figured it was ok. But Alta instead walked over to the people cookie bin and pulled a cookie out and started feeding it to my puppy who was hanging over my shoulder, clawing my neck. When I caught a glimpse of the cookies I thought they might be oatmeal, but alas, as I was standing there, back to alta, who was feeding a full cookie to my 12 pound dog, I got many whiffs of chocolate. Sigh, but there is no telling alta “no” so, Lucy got a chocolate chip cookie.
We made it out of there just fine, got what we needed, and headed to depot. We have a pop up crate with a zip closure that we use at the studio, so we dropped Lucy in it, and went inside.
To start, the aisles of lumber for three aisles wide were blocked off for a forklift, so we couldn’t get to it. We instead went to look at conduit, which are big metal poles we are using to mount the vinyl onto racks. They were the right price and length, but they only had 1/2”, 1” and on up in sizes in the style (ie the cheapest one) that we needed. There was 3/4” in both of the more expensive styles, and the plastic piping, and there were all the findings that went with 3/4”, but none on the rack. Oy.
So, off to find a Home Depot employee, which took a good 5 minutes of solid searching. We found one who was very helpful, who found the correct guy we needed. He rolled his little inventory cart over, and found out that indeed they should have 3/4” conduit, in fact his inventory showed they had 1100 sticks. Ok, great, so where are they? He told us they were likely in upper storage somewhere, and he could get them in 20-25 minutes.
So, we went off to get the lumber we needed, and being as the aisle we needed was half open again, we checked prices, found what we needed, and went searching for a cart. We went back down the aisle, since the door end was blocked off, and started to go down the next aisle over, when we noticed it was blocked off as well. So, being as the next (and final aisle which ran along the edge of the building) was open, we headed down, only to come to that same stupid orange foldy gate around the corner blocking us from the door.
SO, we headed over four aisles, came down, and started for the door, only to find they had ENTIRELY BLOCKED OFF THE DOOR TO THE OUTSIDE and the forklift was about to head out the door. At this point, James starts in a panicked voice repeating, “I just need a cart! Why can’t I get to the carts! I just need a cart! I just need a cart!” After a funny/scared looked from the 3-4 home depot employees it takes to operate a forklift, and one of them saying “Well, they’re just outside there.” (you know, like we were stupid and couldn’t figure that out....) They let us by. And we grabbed a cart which made a sound like what I would imagine a hippo being skinned alive would sound like, but only after we got back into the store.
On the way back in, skinning a hippo cart and all, and the guy with the conduit comes around the corner and says, “Well, when I was asking the electrical guy about the conduit it, he said there was just no room on that shelf so they are over in the middle of the plastic shelf.” Of. Course. They. Are. No, seriously, that makes TOTAL sense.
Off we go to get our conduit, walking past another h.d. emplyee who is called on the radio as we pass, and screams at the top of his lungs "I'M BUSY RIGHT NOW, GET SOMEONE ELSE!!!!" James then turns and looks at me and says, "Well, the store make be difficult to get around, but at least the employees aren't surly....." Once back at the conduit aisles, look at that, there is one rack of metal conduit in the middle of 15 different kinds of plastic conduit.
Off we head to the checkout, feeling thankful that we are done with our h.d. adventure, only to have all of the bar codes rubbed off the hidden 3/4” conduit. So, on the phone goes our cashier to electrical, looking for a skew. And guess what? HE COULDN’T FIND THE 3/4” EMT CONDUIT. So, we spent at least 10 minutes at the checkout, getting the correct skew, even though we know size, name, price, and everything else.
So, after finally checking out, being nearly hit by only 2 cars in the parking lot- one of which we thought about just rolling the cart full of metal conduit and lumber into, we got to the car with a big sigh of relief, only to realize we had pulled through another parking spot (in our giant van. no seriously. we have one of those dodge sprinters. they look like european delivery vans and it is like 9 feet tall) and someone had parked right behind us, close enough we couldn’t load the car. So, we open the door to get in, and there’s Lucy, out of her crate, chewing on one of those cardboard 4 drink holder things you get at coffee places. She, in her hopped up on sugar state, was spinning circles and had gone through all the trash in the car, and was grunting at us.
At this point we were in absolute hysterics, enough that other people in the parking lot were looking at us like we were totally nuts. I pulled into another parking spot, we got the lumber and conduit loaded, and just as james was putting the handbreak down, we noticed Lucy had chewed on the release button.
Oh my goodness. What an absolutely hysterical morning! We watched Arrested Development season one last night under recommendation from Jamie and Kendall, and though we thought it was funny, james and I decided nothing on tv tops real life. No wonder I never leave the shop!
Alright, thanks for reading my ridiculously long post. I hope you enjoyed it half as much I did....
