The mystique of the hardware store
- Laura Moore: Housebroken
- October 28, 2024
- 1617
Becoming a homeowner is an excellent excuse to visit your local hardware store. These emporiums of home repair and fix-up necessities are for houses what pharmacies are for humans.
Hardware store personnel speak house needs fluently and are very adept at deciphering sign language. For instance, you can ask for a “thingamajig, about so wide” to fix your “whats-it,” and the chances are good the hardware store employee will help you find it. However, this works best when the person who needs the “thingamajig” is the one who goes and gets it.
Once, Taller Half sent me to get a washer for a supposed washer-less faucet. That seemed odd to me then and still does. One would seem to cancel out the other in my mind, but such was not the case. We had chosen to have the more expensive washer-less faucet installed, which, I was assured, would be cheaper in the long run. But in the short run, the
faucet leaked and a washer was needed to protect our investment.
So off I was sent to get a washer for a washer-less faucet. The clerk was kind and understanding and located a washer he thought would do the trick. It didn’t. Back I went to exchange one size washer for another size. This time the size was right, but the shape was wrong. At this point I refused to go back to harass that clerk a third time. “Go exchange that washer yourself,” I told Taller Half. That was a mistake.
Something happens to some men when they enter a hardware store. It’s kind of like they step into a time warp. Some have been known to disappear for a whole day. Taller Half was lucky. He was able to pull himself away after just a couple of hours.
We then had a washer-less faucet with a washer that worked fine. Unfortunately, the leak moved down into the pipe under the sink. I actually volunteered to go to the hardware store this time. It was a matter of being wiser as a result of my previous experience. I wanted that leak fixed soon, not hours later when Taller Half finally managed to leave that store.