Ah, the “Mom ‘n Pop” hardware store. The last time I watched the news on one of the networks (this is years ago), they were doing a piece on some poor couple who’s store was closing because they couldn’t compete with Walmart (because, naturally, this couple’s individual fortunes have so much relevance to the other 300,000,000 among us that they deserve a full six and a half minutes out of 24, but never mind that), and I suppose it was very tragic and unfair.

We have a “Mom ‘n Pop” hardware store here. Although I think it’s “Mom ‘n Son”. Mom, we’ll get to her in a sec. Son, he’s stone deaf and talks like he’s had his tongue cut out by barbary pirates. I do so love shouting and repeating myself when I’m in a store. We have a good deal of experience with the place because for just about everything we needed during the remodel, they didn’t have. Our contractor was amazed.

So this afternoon I strapped on my walking shoes and went around the corner to our little local hardware store to get the hex bit for our Ikea stuff outside. Our 3/8 is just a fraction of a millimeter too small for the screw I showed him, which he took out of my hand, and told me he has a 3/8. “I already have a 3/— I ALREADY HAVE A 3/8 AND IT’S TOO SMALL.” So he drops the screw back into my hand and says he doesn’t have one bigger and turns around and goes back behind the counter. And this after I’ve sworn off the place out of consideration of my sanity.

Last time I was in there, we were looking for some stakes for the beans I’m trying to grow. Bamboo, preferably. Nice and environmentally sustainable and probably inexpensive. Ah, there in that corner was a box of bamboo stakes. Perfect. It had handwritten “Bamboo 15¢” which is adorable. How often do you see ¢-signs anymore? The stakes were in packs of 6, which had price tags on them $3.50. I looked through the box to see if there were little, shabbier ones somewhere that were 15¢ but there weren’t, so I thought they must be on sale. So I asked “Mom” how much they were in my nicest sweet-little-redhead voice. It usually tears the old people up. She looked at me like I was insane and barked “Well how much does it say?” I told her what it says and asked which was right. So she waddled over to the bamboo, muttered “how many are there in here”, and, despite the big 6 on the package, counted them out loud. Then she barked “Well it’s 15¢ for one and $3.50 for six then,” with a scowl at my incompetence. These kids today, eh? I put forth that 6 times 15 is considerably less than $3.50, so she gawped for a moment and then barked at me that “You’re going to get a discount if you buy all six.” Deciding then that she just wasn’t understanding, I simply asked if I would be able to just buy one or two stakes for 15¢ or if she would prefer me to buy all six. At this point she looked like she was going to call the police and barked, again, angrily, “You can buy as many as you want but it’s always going to cost more to break a package. You can buy all six if you want but anywhere you go it’ll cost more to break a package.” So I gave up and left.

And bought lovely big tall sturdy plastic laminated metal ones in a lovely shade of green formed to look like bamboo made in China from Daiso for $1.50. So yeah, it would be a real shame if this place closed.

Date: May 29th, 2007 · Comments RSS · Tags: People and Current Events