I swear to God that the Gas Powered Leaf Blower has to be the most annoying invention produced by man in the past half century.
They're fewer of them, but to me they're almost more annoying than loud mouthed idiots with cell phones in public places.
The reason I say this is that in the past ten days I managed to drag my lazy butt off my office chair and the dead battery out of my Suburban and over to Autozone for what has become a celebrated Bi-annual Vehicle Battery Replacement Ritual (or BAVBARR for short.)
For those of you that don't know the pleasure of buying 42 gallons of gas at one time and getting 9 MPG on the highway, the 2500 series, 3/4 Ton, 4 WD, 454 cu inch dual AC trucks like mine eat batteries for a snack--at least mine does.
After dealing with that quality bi-lingual consumer purchasing exercise where they claimed to not have my battery warranty in their computer, once I got home with the new box of lead and acid I fired up the truck and spent a half hour carefully sweeping the winter's worth of dust, leaves, and other debris out of the carport...things which never should have been allowed to accumulate but were covered by the aforementioned truck with the dead battery.
Have you ever tried to push a 6,000 pound vehicle 12 inches not to mention 24 feet over and back...even on flat ground?
It ain't happening here in Knoxtown with my middle aged spleen and liver and wimpy biceps.
So any way...
I also took advantage of a three day period when it didn't rain all day to remove the accumulated vegetative crap out the concrete portal leading into our basement. Everything but the little Wren's nest with the five eggs was removed and disposed of.
Since the completion of my spring cleaning efforts my
Two cuttings in six days...go figure.
Problem is, in spite of us telling him over and over and over that I'd rather have leaves on my grass than in my ears and carport and basement portal, this gentleman insists on brandishing his leaf blower (usually while I'm trying to make a business call) while listening to music on his MP3 player and...
HE INTENDS TO GIVE ME MY MONEYS WORTH OF LEAF BLOWER ACTION.
If it were dry and he blew any more my yard wouldn't have any grass or dirt left in it.
My house would be sitting on a dirt pedestal on top of the Granite bedrock.
And my carport and my Basement portal?
They both basically look like I haven't done any housekeeping in a couple of months. I just get out of the car and look straight ahead toward the door to keep my head from exploding.
And speaking of my head exploding, I have to bring up another situation I detest.
The return counter at Home Depot and Lowe's.
Have you seen the BS people try to get away with at a return counter? People don't want to buy tools to keep, they want to RENT tools...
BUT NOT AT THE HOME DEPOT TOOL RENTAL ROOM.
Apparently people buy tools all the time, use them to make seven cuts or holes, then try to bring them back and get their money back. I saw a guy once try to bring back a big monkey wrench that had something that looked like toilet gasket wax and possibly POOP in it because he said he didn't need it.
I think he stole and and rather than going to a pawn shop since it was relatively new and still had the SKU sticker on it he just wanted the cash.
I think he ended up with a store credit.
Can you buy cheep booze or Crack Cocaine with a Home Depot store credit?
Back to today's point...this morning about 10:30, instead of attending church and pleading for our souls, I was standing in line behind a guy at home depot.
The fellow had two dozen random lengths of trim lumber that had clearly been partially used, but since Home Depot sold the lumber by the foot rather than by the piece he was there for a "RETURN."
The cashier smiled her way through the process of scanning the bar code on each piece and ENDED UP REJECTING OVER HALF THE PRODUCTS because they weren't stocked by Home Depot.
The half dozen six to seven foot sticks of dirty lumber that were Home Depot products had to be measured and fumbled over before again issuing the guy A STORE CREDIT rather than a refund.
Meanwhile I'm standing on one foot twitching and resisting the urge to grab a piece of crown moulding and impaling the guy on it. I could have killed him but instead I enjoyed the expression on his face as he walked away looking at his "IN STORE CREDIT CARD."
I return probaly between 5% and 10% of the miscellaneous crap I buy at the big box home improvement stores. I generally keep an extra board or a few feet of something if I have it left over.
99% of the stuff I return I end up buying a like item...just a different or the RIGHT item within 15 minutes of leaving the return desk.
I think that people that see the return desk as an income source or a credit card cash withdrawal mechanism should be shot...or at least forced to live and work in the Kitchen Cabinet Department or the Custom Window Department for a few months to appreciate what goes on there.
That will be all...for now...
(time to go cut lumber and apply paint)
No comments:
Post a Comment