Home Depot? What's that?

On Thursday evening, Corinne informed me that her toilet was stopped up. Normally, because most of my life I've lived in an apartment, or somewhere where someone knew how to take care of this problem, I would let someone else handle this. We didn't have a plunger, and it was hard to take care of the problem without one. So, Friday, after work, I planned on going to Home Depot that was right down the street where we lived to go buy TWO plungers, one for each bathroom.

I stepped into Home Depot and realized that I have never been to Home Depot by myself. All of the trips I've made to Home Depot have been with my ex-husband. I have nightmares of being dragged around the store and spending endless hours in the tool crib. Well, maybe we didn't spend "endless" hours in the tool crib, but it felt like it. My eyes would glaze over when we would stand in front of nuts and bolts and he would explain that he needed a certain size and would dig and dig. Heck, they all looked the same to me. Just pick one and go. And if that wasn't enough, we would have to go the lumber area and get some complicated piece of lumber that was in some unusual size. Why couldn't we go to some fun part of the store, like appliances, or kitchen cabinets. Those were fun things to look at. I would dream that someday I might have those cabinets in my kitchen, or that washer would look great in my laundry room.

I went to "Plumbing" to start looking for the plungers. All I found were pipe fittings for sinks and toilets. Those dang nuts and bolts were haunting me again as well. I couldn't believe my eyes! Why couldn't they put plumbing stuff in plumbing? I know that these were plumbing things, but why couldn't they put other plumbing things there as well? I saw some employees helping customers at the end of the aisle, so I decided to walk that way. The older gentleman employee stopped and asked me, "May I help you?" You would have thought I heard him say he was the savior of the world or something, because immediately I felt relieved and told him, "I'm looking for a plunger, a good old fashion plunger. Do you have any?" He smiled and said, "Yes, ma'am. Follow me." He led me to an aisle two aisles over, in a different section. Halfway down the aisle, he stopped and pointed to a bottom shelf. I looked at the shelf, and then looked at him. "Thank you so much!" I told him. He told me no problem and smiled as he walked away. He must of thought I was looney.

There was only one kind of plunger: Heavy Duty. I picked up two bottom parts and two sticks that screw on to the bottom. I didn't take the time to put them together because I didn't see the reason why I should.

I made my way to the cash register and realized that the only ones open were "self-checkout". I started the procedure to check out, and scanned the first bottom part of the plunger, the part that has the price on it. So far, so good. I put that piece in the bag. I decided that since the stick goes with it, I should put the stick in the bag as well. At the same time, I had put my purse down in that same spot to get my debit card out. Suddenly, the scanner says, "Unexpected item in bag. Please remove before proceeding." I thought it was my purse, so I picked it up, but it kept saying, "Unexpected item..." Then I realized that it was the stick. So, I took it out of the bag, and the message cleared. So, I'm standing there with my purse over the shoulder, and two sticks under my arm, and the other bottom part. I scanned the other bottom part and stuck it in the bag. I finally finished my transactions and high tailed it out of there, with sticks under my arm.

And you wonder why I never have gone to Home Depot by myself?