Home Depot

Growing up, my dad was my hero; in fact he still is. However while there was no one that I tried harder to be like, I was occasionally made acutely aware of his faults, particularly during any trip to Home Depot which inevitably ended in a discussion with the store manager. (The volume of said discussion depended on how reasonable the M.O.D. was willing to be.)

As I got older and entered my teenage years I avoided trips to Home Depot with my dad at all costs. Unlike many teenagers I was proud to spend time with both of my parents 99% of the time. My parents would even occasionally try to embarrass me but even then I thought they were funny. It is pretty hard to embarrass me, but my dad always managed to do it at Home Depot.

Dad tried several times to argue that it was not him but every employee at every Home Depot that he had ever encountered and had nothing to do with him. Based on the sheer frequency of his problems at this store I didn’t buy his argument and continued to do anything I could to avoid going to Home Depot with dad.

However… “Dad I owe you an apology.”

2 of my last 3 trips to Home Depot have been so noteworthy Joshua Jones has written about them in his Blog: http://settingamaddeningpace.blogspot.com/search?q=home+depot . For this third visit of the “Home Depot Trilogy” I am editorializing.

Josh and I went to home depot to pick up a high powered fan, a propane tank, some light bulbs and possibly a charcoal grill. (the only reason we still go to home depot is convenience. It is minutes from the corps and one of the few places that would carry all of the items I just listed.
When we arrived we went straight to the grills as they are right by the entrance. There was one Charcoal grill among 30 or so gas grills of every shape and size. The only charcoal grill on display however, had no price tag. So we spent several minutes trying to find someone to assist us. When no one was available I went to the courtesy desk and had someone paged.

Our assistance came in a young man creatively using his orange apron to hold a large bag of Doritos which were both in his mouth and on his fingers when he asked us what we wanted. When I pointed to the grill he told me they don’t carry it. When I asked the obvious question of why they have it on display if it isn’t for sale he simply ignored it as he told me I should just buy one of the other grills, which I explained I didn’t want. I was only interested in a Charcoal grill. (The food tastes better)

Taking the high road we moved on to the other items on our list, which we found without any major incident. In fact while retrieving the other items we discovered a display of portable sturdy and affordable charcoal grills in a random part of the store. These grills were exactly what I had been looking for and Josh was so impressed he is considering purchasing one personally for his new apartment.

We placed the grill into our cart and proceeded to find our last item. While we worked our way through the store we passed the ‘assistance’ from earlier (still eating he Doritos conveniently blending into his orange apron.) when he noticed our cart and the grill on top he began to yell at me saying “I thought you only wanted the other grill huh, huh?

This trip ended with the manager on duty. That’s three trips and three problems. Dad, I am sorry all this time it really was them. Maybe they actually train their staff not to be helpful.