I cannot begin to tell you how many hours I’ve spent at Home Depot over my lifetime. The vast majority of those hours was during our home renovation back in 2012. The length and quality of our visits varied widely. We’d either be dropping by to pick something up on a whim, like grass seed, or spending a grueling marathon of time – not to mention brain cells – trying to figure out what shade of white we wanted for the blinds in our master bedroom.
This particular visit was different, and it happened last week. Emma had mentioned that she wanted to dress up as Buffy the Vampire Slayer for Comicon; wouldn’t it be cool to have a wooden stake? This was what I was thinking about as I pulled into the parking lot, slurping an iced-coffee I had just picked up at Timothy’s. I parked, got out, and made a bee-line to the garden centre. As I walked through the parking lot I could feel the caffeine seeping into my bloodstream. The sun was shining, I was on a mission, I was feeling pretty good.
I found a staff member in the garden centre, thinking this had to be the obvious place to find a wooden garden stake. Apparently this was not the case. He redirected me to Lumber, which was on the very opposite end of the football-field-sized building. I marched through the doors, with a renewed sense of purpose now that I was Actually Heading in the Right Direction.
The smell of rough lumber brings me back to my childhood, and it makes me happy. I walked past the stacks of lumber with coffee and happy smells fueling the bounce in my step. I actually checked my pedometer at one point because I felt like I was really racking ’em up. The farther I walked, the more I thought about how I was going to frame this particular request. Hmm. This might be awkward.
I spotted the Lumber Department fellow next to the giant Staff Only saw. He was younger, maybe university age. Maybe I could trust him with an honest request?
“Can I help you?”
“Er, yesssss. I have a very strange request.”
He gave me a look that I chose to interpret as, hey, this might be interesting.
I asked him if he was familiar with Comicon. He responded in the affirmative. Ok! We’re heading in the right direction! I explained my daughter’s penchant for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and her costume plans and asked whether Home Depot had any wooden stakes that might fit the bill.
He showed me a stack of stakes that were way too wide and too long. I shook my head, no, not quite. He then pointed out some bundles of wooden stakes. They were perfect – ideal for vampire killing! – but I only needed two. I think Young Home Depot Man sensed my disappointment. I definitely did not need a whole bundle of stakes for mass vampire murder.
How about that, he said, as he pointed with his finger. I followed the imaginary line to a jumble of rough-looking stakes that had come unbundled. Home Depot had a reject pile! He picked out two and showed them to me. That’ll do, I said. Perfect. He wrote a receipt for the find: scrap wood, free. And with that, I went merrily on my way home. Little did I know, this was not going to be the end of the story of the stake.
Part two of this post is here.
