Home Depot Freak Show

Hey, kids! Do you know what today's secret word is? It's rude! That's right, R-U-D-E. As in low-lifes with no basic sense of manners.

I went to Home Depot earlier as planned. My boards for the shed were there. (Brian in millwork can now rest easy.) As it turns out, I only needed five of them. That's because I did some replanning on the fly -- and saved myself well over $100 in the process.

I knew it was going to need a cart but I didn't want one of the flat carts that I used so much last year to haul sand, rock, and bricks. No, I wanted what I call a panel cart, with the dividers and the little risers you can lay boards on. They were pretty hard to come by. I found one though and had it with me as I looked at vinyl boards. It attempted to leave me three times in less than five minutes.

It was empty beside me while I tried to calculate how many boards to buy. Guy #1 casually strolls up and begins walking away with it. "Excuse me," says I. "That's my cart." He didn't even bother to push it back, left it halfway down the aisle. Jerk.

Guy #2 appeared just as I had the number arrived at and had determined there were enough boards on the shelf. I had turned around to set my piece of paper down when the cart began to move. It was SO close to me it even brushed my hip. This time I wasn't polite. "Hey, that's MY cart." I grabbed it as it rolled past me. The guy was visibly p*ssed and stormed off.

I pushed the cart to the edge of the vinyl board display, had both hands on a board and was turning to put it on the cart, when it began to ROLL AWAY again! This time I threw a foot on the edge, flipping one side off the ground slightly. The culprit stopped in his tracks. He had the gall to give me a dirty look and then walked away. Three times in under five minutes and at no time did anyone apologize or say anything at all for that matter.

Did people get an extra helping of rude at breakfast today? Sheesh.

Then, I got the extra added bonus of being the spectacle of choice under the contractor's canopy. That's because I defied all logic and some passersby by successfully loading 15 eight-foot 1x6 boards and 5 seven-footers of the same dimensions into Ladybird.
This is starting to be
too common of a thing for me. Maybe I should do a little marketing and sell tickets? I mean, if I am going to be looked upon like a circus act, why not?

I learned that I CAN fit multiple 8-footers in the car. I wasn't sure I could, but I was willing to give it a try. That's a good thing considering that Home Depot wouldn't cut these boards because they're PVC.

That brings me to how I saved the money. The ideal height of the boards I need would be 7.5 feet. That would yield me two pieces for the side of the shed per board. Unfortunately, the 7 footers wouldn't do. When I came across the 8-footers, which are essentially the NoRot boards I have used for trim pieces before, I was thrilled. So instead of buying and wasting seven footers, I spent about $6 more per board to yield two pieces each.

And you thought my skills were limited to loading.

So while my amazing feat of jamming a whole lot of boards into a passenger car was under way, there were two guys having a conversation about 10 feet away. When one of the guys started to walk into the store after snuffing out his cigarette, his companion grabbed his arm. "Wait," I heard him attempt to whisper. " I gotta see this."

Well, just so I don't disappoint you ...

The most amazing feat of all though is yet to be accomplished: Getting them out of the car AND, this is the ultra-tricky part, finding somewhere to store them.