Regular readers will know that I am building a house. Irregular readers, unless they deliberately skipped that first sentence, are now caught up as well.I'm building a house. It's impossible these days to build a house without making regular trips to one of two places: Lowe's or Home Depot. Or, as I call them, "Slowe's" and "Home Despot." Yes, that's how damned clever I am. Add a letter to make a wry commentary on the store. Friggin' brilliant.
I hate both of those places. Don't get me wrong; I love the acres and acres of stuff that I need. But somewhere in South America there's a rain forest that's missing a lot of retarded apron-wearing monkeys. Because seriously, could they find any less helpful people to work at these places? And it's not bad enough that they don't know anything about what they're selling; you can't even get a dumb look from these people because they have been conditioned from day one to avoid eye contact with anyone who isn't also wearing an orange apron.
You know what I'm talking about. It's how I used to get free meals at the cafeteria in college. While all the sheep are waiting in line, mealcards in hand, you stride boldly past, your eyes affixed on something in the distance. Your body language says, "I am supposed to be over THERE. Not here. Here does not concern me. The only thing that matters is that I get over THERE, as quickly as possible." And the nice old lady or Canadian sliding cards through the scanner lets you past without raising an eyebrow, because it's pretty clear from the way you're striding boldly and actively ignoring her that you have serious business to attend to in THERE, and even if you don't, she's a food service worker getting minimum wage for sliding plastic cards through a slot, not the friggin' Secret Service.
Slowe Despot employees (see what I did there?) have made the Walk of Purposefulness into an art form. These people must train by running a gauntlet of customers trying to flag them down.
"What did Billy do wrong, people?"
"He made eye contact."
"And...?"
"He asked if they needed help."
"What should he have said?"
"This isn't my deparment."
"Very good. We also would have accepted, 'Let me see if I can find someone to help you,' or 'I'm on my break.'"
I thought about doing a post comparing the relative merits of the employees of each of the home improvement mammoths, but that would probably be about as interesting as a cricket match between Hellen Keller and Jabba the Hutt. So I decided to do a comparison between a typical home improvement store employee and an inanimate object. Shopping cars, in particular.
Availability
Unless you're shopping at 10 am on the Saturday before the 4th of July, the odds are that you're going to find a cart. Maybe not one of the big heavy lumber carts, but hey, it's not going to kill the kids to get a little exercise this time.
In contrast, unless you've got a taser gun, your odds of bagging an employee are far worse. And again, even if you do have a taser gun, the odds of getting one of the big heavy ones are pretty poor.
Winner: Carts.
Appearance
At older stores, many of the carts are pretty beat up. Still, they generally retain their overall pleasant orangey appearance.
Even at newer stores, the employees are pretty beat up, and have long since lost any orangey demeanor.
Winner: Carts.
Subject Matter Knowledge
The carts don't know much except how to go straight, and some of them can't even manage that.
Most employees can walk straight and answer simple questions in their area of expertise, be it TomKat, Brangelina or their stupid jerk boss who won't give them next Thursday off.
Winner: Employees.
Politeness
Both carts and employees tend to ignore you until you give them a little shove. The cart will then respond by moving a little in the direction you shoved it. The employee will generally glare at you and possibly shove back.
Winner: Carts.
Intangibles
Defective carts and employees both sometimes making whiny or rubby noises as they move. Often a cart will offer you a brochure of expired coupons and a half-empty cup of Mountain Dew. Often an employee will offer you a "Have a nice day" when you're buying a new hot water heater at 9:45 pm on a Sunday.
Winner: Tie.
Overall
Carts, though slightly dumber than the typical employee, are the clear winner. Avoid the ones that squeak and veer unexpectedly to the left and you should be fine. The same is true for employees.
UPDATE: Thanks to Jennifer for sending me this link confirming my feelings about Home Depot: Is Home Depot shafting shoppers?
Humor-blogs.com can be found on aisle 14. Unless we're out of it. That's really not my department.
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