1 Happy St

Over the weekend, I made like Frank the Tank and spent my Saturday at the Home Depot. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough time for Bed, Bath, and Beyond, but that's only because the folks over at Home Depot caused me to waste away a good portion of the day. I'll explain.

I had a pretty big order of stuff I needed. I think I mentioned this a week or two ago, but I'm in the process of remodeling* my basement. My list included [4] 6-paneled doors, 500 sq ft. of insulation, and the bathroom vanity that I had ordered the previous week that they were now telling me had arrived. All of it added together was pretty expensive. And heavy. And awkward to push around the store by myself seeing as though I filled 2 flat carts.

* By "remodel", I mean "model". I don't think it would be accurate to call it remodeling because my basement has never been modeled. Up until now, the room has only consisted of a pool table sitting on cold concrete. In a few long weeks, I hope to be able to say it's a pool table sitting on cold carpet. Maybe there will be a dart board too. Yeah, definitely a dart board.

Thankfully, Home Depot had a huge staff on hand to help me wherever I walked. Unthankfully, none of them offered to. Rather, every single employee I came across would say to me "would you like to sign up for a Home Depot credit card?" and I would respond to each of them by saying "I already have one". Then they would walk away and move on to the next customer with the same question. One male employee who saw me struggling with my two carts even ran clear across an aisle yelling at me: "Sir! Sir! Hang on a sec." I thought to myself, "finally I'm going to get some service around here." But no. Instead I got "you should really sign up for a credit card today. You have a pretty big order and I can get you 10% off." When I told him that I already had a card, he asked me if there was a balance on it because if not, he could say that I lost it and I could apply for a new one. I told him to please go away, so he did. By the time I made it to the cashier, I swear at least 20 people had asked me if I wanted to sign up for a credit card and not one of them had offered to help me load my cart or find what I was looking for. I'm not kidding. This is not hyperbole. 20 people. By the time I made it to the front of the store, I was pissed, sweaty, dirty from loading 500 sq. ft. of busted insulation onto my cart all by myself, and in no mood for what came next.

The cashier asked me if I would like to sign up for a credit card [of course] and if so, she would take $50 off my bill. I said to her "I have one already and I just want to get out of here." Her pitch was not over. "It doesn't matter if you have one already. We can get you a contractor's card which offers more perks and services than the card you currently have."

But I'm not a contractor.

"That doesn't matter. We do this all the time. It takes 2 minutes."

Fine. Give me the bleeping form.

I have no idea why I agreed at this point. On principle, I should have walked out of that store and proceeded to burn it to the ground. I was so done with every person wearing orange. But I'm also a sucker. And a moron. And I guess extremely forgiving. And I wanted the 50 bucks**.

** Ding ding ding. This was probably the main reason. I can say in all honesty now though that I will never again prostitute myself for anything less that $75.

The cashier made it sound like the balance from my old card (about $500 or so) would be transferred to the new card with a swift click of a button (I found out later this would not be true), and my new card would provide me with "insider deals" (her words) that only get offered to their best customers, ie. contractors who spend a lot of time and money at their store. Fine. F#ck it. Give me the form.

So as I was filling out the form, the dude from earlier who ran clear across an aisle asking me to sign up for a credit card saw me filling out a form just minutes after I had told him no thanks. And now he was pissed. So he began taking it out on the cashier who got me to agree. And me. Yes, AND ME. He was saying things like "this is my sale. I want credit for this. You told me you didn't want one. That's not cool Man. I have bills to pay too."

I promise this happened.

And then I snapped.

"YOU BETTER MOVE ON. I AM SO DONE WITH YOU PEOPLE AND I'M ABOUT TO GO OFF. IT'S IN YOUR BEST INTEREST TO GO AWAY BEFORE WE'RE BOTH IN TROUBLE."

Yeah, I said something like that. And so he did move on. And 5 minutes later, I had my $50 discount and I was out of there. But not before I had to take 2 trips from the store to my truck with my 2 large carts, and then load all the stuff into the truck all by myself.

So next time you're at Home Depot and someone asks you to sign up for a credit card, do the smart thing and tell them to go away. And then punch them in the face.

[Note: use of asterisks a nod to Joe Posnanski, the best blogger on the planet]

In mid-December, Jill and I had the fine folks from Perma-Seal come out and inspect our basement because we were getting water down there. It seemed like we would get at least a few puddles after every storm no matter how hard the rain came down. There was no denying we had to get it fixed, especially since we had plans to remodel it.

So a couple months ago, Perma-Seal came out and quoted me $8500 to fix our problem(s). Now I’ll admit I gasped a little bit when the guy said that number, but then he showed me the itemized bill and it made a little more sense. Believe me, our basement needs a lot of work. So anyway, after providing the quote, Perma-Seal called me back the next day and scheduled the work to be done on February 22nd and 23rd.

Fast forward to today: we have not had any water in our basement since they came out for the inspection two months ago. What had been practically a daily occurrence of new standing water has yet to occur again since they originally came out. Why does that always happen? It’s like when you sit through the pain of a toothache for a week or two, then the day before you’re supposed to see the dentist, the pain stops. What the ####?!?! I’ll be honest, I’d feel much better about handing over $8500 if my basement was a small lake right now.

So I am ashamed to admit it but even with all the nice weather we've had of late, I still hadn't opened my grill yet. That is, until today. I looked out the window and I noticed that a bird landed on the side and then crawled inside my grill.

Yes, my first instinct was to turn on the grill at that point, but I resisted. He flew out a couple seconds later. So I went out and rapped on the outside of the grill to make sure he didn't have friends in there ready to attack me. Nothing. It was safe.

So I opened the lid and sure enough... there was an entire nest in there. It was very gross. After several minutes of debate... I decided to evict them. These germ riddled squatters were going to have to a new place to live. I moved all their twig-like belongings out to the curb. Ok, actually I just moved the nest onto the floor of the deck and went inside.

A few minutes later the bird came back. This time he had his companion. They weren't happy. I listened closely and I'm positive this is what I heard...

"Oh great, what are we supposed to do now, Larry?"
"How should I know, Robin?"
"Well this was all your idea..."
"MY idea?! You said you wanted to be closer to your sister!!"
"Yeah, I put a gun to your head and said, 'let's live in an oven!'"
"Well I didn't hear you offer up any ideas at the time."
"Maybe if you paid attention to me, you would have known what I was thinking!"
"Known what you were thinking? Who am I, Miss Cleo?"

Then they each grabbed a twig and flew off. Something tells me that was just the beginning of that conversation.

Yesterday, I accepted an "everyone-wins" opportunity from my next door neighbor. He couldn't get his lawn mower started, so he asked if he could borrow mine. In return, he would mow my lawn for me after he was finished mowing his. A can't miss scenario, right? Of course it is, so I agreed.

"I have a few things I have to take care of first," said my neighbor. "But I'll be over in a few minutes [to get the mower from you]."

"Okay," I said. "Take your time."

Ten minutes later, my neighbor's 10 year old son showed up. Now he's a good kid, but not the first person I'd trust with my 20 HP Craftsman rider.

"Hi Brian, my Dad said to come over to get your mower."

"Uh, okay," I said reluctantly.

Now I'm in a difficult position. I agreed to lend out my mower, but had I known he was sending his kid over, I definitely wouldn't have. How could I change my mind now though? So instead, I put the kid through like 20 minutes of training on how to use the thing, which included at least 5 minutes of things NOT to do (don't run over anything that isn't green, stay at least 5 feet away from all cars at all times, and never ever EVER put it into 6th gear).

So off he went. I thought to myself that at least he was practicing on his own yard first. I, of course, was planted in front of my living room window, watching every move. He had a little bit of difficulty around a couple turns, and at one point, I actually saw the whole mower leap off the ground (even now, I'm not sure what he hit to make it do that). But about 45 minutes later, he finished up and it was time for my yard. Surprisingly, I only noticed about 2 or 3 clutch-rides and 4 or 5 grinds of my gears. Not bad for a first timer.

Unfortunately, he didn't have as much luck in Round 2. Perhaps he got a little cocky from his near-flawless maiden run on his own yard, or perhaps he simply forgot Rule #1 of things not to do.

POP... POP... POP... POP... POP... POP... POP... POP... POP

"Oh no," I thought to myself. "I think he got my lights."

After further inspection.......Yup, he did.

The very first pass-through, he managed to take out all 9 solar-powered lights that I have lining the front of my house. I heard the mower turn off, and moments later, a knock at the door.

"Uh, Brian," he said sheepishly.

"Yeah, I heard," I replied, cutting him off before he could continue. "I'll take it from here."

I hate my life.