You are too much for me, Home Depot! I wish I knew how to quit you.

About an hour before I broke up with Home Depot FOREVER!

Last Satruday morning Ben woke me from a beautiful and blissful sleep to tell me that I was snoring. This doesn’t seem so abnormal except that he had been UP AND OUT OF THE ROOM FOR AN HOUR. I’m not sure the exact face I made at him at that time but I know what I was thinking. It was something along the lines of “I wonder how far into his ass my foot is going to be before it starts to register how terrible a mistake he’s just made”. Turned out he just woke me up to see if I wanted to go to Home Depot with him.

I should have stayed in bed.

When we got there we had two goals in mind. 1) Get him a set of calipers to measure my brake roters 2) Pick up a wallpaper remover tool and spray and some paint swatches, both for Cassidy’s bathroom. Other than a slight snag when the tool guy didn’t know what calipers were, we made pretty good time and I even got Ben to detour down the lighting isle to scope out some fixtures for ALL the bathrooms.

Then we got in line to check out.

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Then 45 minutes later when we were still in line, actually the THIRD LINE, Ben’s cooling system broke and his rods reached critical mass and I had to slowly step back about 15 feet to avoid becoming collateral damage.

See,the computers were down. The were running around FRANTIC and OMG WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO THERE ARE NO COMPUTERS HOW DO WE FUNCTION!? Because, you know, it’s not like you can actually SELL something if there’s not a touchscreen monitor in front of you telling you how which step of the check out process you are on, what to do next, and the amount of change you need to dispense.

So because they couldn’t use their fancy machines to hold their hands through the process let me tell you the genius system they devised.

Step 1: Stand in line so that ONE girl at ONE counter could write all of the items on a triplicate form while the 24 people in line behind you groan loudly.

Step 2: Stand in another line so that a girl can add prices to the form, then manually add them up, calculate tax and total it.

Step 3: Stand in ANOTHER line to pay using one of the old school swipe style credit card machines.

Step 4: Walk to power tool isle, pick up nail gun, place directly against head, pull trigger.

Of course we were in line #3 and next to pay and get the fuck out of there when… suddenly all the computers started working again! I slammed my stuff down, almost turned around and spit venom directly into the face of the man that tried to line cut me after he’d spent 45 minutes in line behind me and CERTAINLY should have understood that based on line hierarchy, my shit was getting checked out first and if you try to get in my way I am allowed to backhand you with a sledgehammer.

Then the check out lady took the receipt we should have gotten and slid it into her register before she realized what she was doing EVEN THOUGH SHE HAD A COMPUTER TELLING HER EXACTLY WHAT TO DO AND WHAT TO SAY AND WHEN TO HAND ME WHAT AND WHEN.

So it was another 15 minutes of standing there because she had to finish the next sale to open the drawer. Only the machine wouldn’t take the guy’s debit card. And then it wouldn’t take his credit card. So he had to go out to his car and get his check book. And write a check. With his hand. And a pen.

It was sometime between the failure of the credit card and the check writing that Ben’s head started to actually steam and I had to move further away because he was radiating enough heat to melt the plastic bags holding my nifty new $5.00 wallpaper removal tool. From 15 feet away.

When we finally got our receipt and got out of there we weren’t sure whether we should go to Starbucks and treat ourselves for not actually reaching critical mass or drive straight home and start drinking obscene amounts of tequila to forget the entire experience. We opted for the Starbucks.

My love affair with Home Depot is OFFICIALLY OVER.

At least until later this week when we go in to price flooring for downstairs.

17 thoughts on “You are too much for me, Home Depot! I wish I knew how to quit you.

  1. I love homedepot, probably cause its with in walking distance and I know where everything is in that store. Its lowes on the other hand that i cannot stand. the people there dont know shittake. and the store is so unorganized.

  2. This is why I’m glad our Home Depot has a Lowe’s directly across the street. I would have left, as nothing in the world is worth wasting that much time and/or dealing assholes.

  3. Oooooomg the waiting in line alone would have had me out of there. But really, once the receipt thing happened? OMG I could have KILLED a person!!!

    He had to write A CHECK!

    I don’t know if I would have attacked the checker or the guy but after all that hassle? I think you guys are saints.

  4. I knew there was a reason I hated Home Depot. Aside from their sales associates being pretty useless and the checkout girls having all the personality of a wet rag.

    Thank God there’s a Lowe’s less than two minutes from Home Depot, haha.

    Also: I can say I hate home improvement stores all I want but I inevitably get sucked into all the pretty shiny stuff. Sigh.

  5. Okay so this post made me LOL but on the inside I was really thinking holy crap that is god awful. I give you props for being able to withstand that crap and not go completely insane. I would have flipped my lid if that were me. (I have no patience though). Next time (hopefully there wont be a next time) just start punching people. I’m sure it would get you through the line faster and relieve all of the tension caused my stupid people. =)

  6. We don’t have a conveniently located Across The Street Lowes. There is a Lowes a freeway exit away but WE ALREADY HAD WHAT WE WANTED and Ben was looking for a specific set of digital calipers and while the Lowes near us does have a much better supply of home goods, it’s tool department is lacking.

    Plus, that would have been a much more boring blog post. 😉

  7. The dude had to write a check. When HomeDepot thought their computer system had started fully working, it really was only at 90%, so this guys card (whatever it was) was getting rejected or it was saying ‘call for authorization’, and he, like me, had no patience for this anymore, so he volunteered to go out to his car, leave his goods inside, come back, and write a check (This is how much longer we were waiting for that …receipt…..)

    ……….The Frustration, ….DO NOT WANT!

  8. Oh, wow, the professionalism and the staff’s knowledge of how to do their job dazzles me.

    How does one stand in line for so long and not start choking bitches, by the way? Is that sort of patience something that comes with parenthood or must you be born with it? Because I would have. Choked a bitch, that is.

  9. Hey Anna I got a notification in my inbox that you posted a new blog called autocross but i dont see it anywhere 🙁

  10. One more time – you are far more patient than I am. I would have left everything, gone to Starbucks and then come back when the checkouts were fixed.

  11. Don’t you know, Anna? The American public could not purchase merchandise from retailers before the invention of the computer! I mean, however would you know how much to pay? What about tax? And you certainly couldn’t expect the employees to know how much money you needed back if you payed for a $9.99 item with a $10 bill! THE WHOLE WORLD STOPS WITHOUT COMPUTERS!

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