A date to Home Depot

Breaking News: the ground has thawed in YYC!  Yes, only a tiny drift of snow remains in only the shadiest part of my yard, and all other gardens are showing signs of life.  Little green shoots!  Tiny baby plants!  Buds on the trees, with the regrettable exception of the once-beautiful-now-apparently-dead, fifty year old hawthorn tree.  I’ve been cleaning up the gardens and cutting back the dead foliage on my perennials, and making big, big, big plans for the front garden.  Well, not BIG plans like ripping out all the lawn – which I would like to do but I encounter resistance from my husband – but plans such as replanting and changing the look of things.

With this in mind, my husband and I went to Home Depot together to buy dirt.  DIRT.  It was possibly the lamest, least romantic date ever, and that includes the time we went to Lowe’s to pick out a high efficiency toilet.  But there we were, with a cart full of dirt, about which we actually had a discussion regarding if this was the ideal kind of dirt.  My husband decided that he needed some kind of ventilation thing for the garage and then left me, with the cart full of dirt, to go look for it.  And I tell you this: there’s nothing like standing by oneself in Home Depot for a long period of time, examining the various cleaning supplies (stainless steel SINK CLEANER?  YES PLEASE.) to make you feel like a 1950’s housefrau, or, alternately, a six year old girl.  No fewer than eight separate Home Depot employees came up to me, wondering if I needed help?  Did I need to find something?  Was I lost?  I don’t mean to play up gender stereotypes or anything, but there was one other woman in the store and she was efficiently purchasing paint supplies, which means that I was not exactly doing my part for feminism.  Eventually, after about fifteen minutes of standing there between the paint and the plumbing aisle, I decided to go look for my husband.  Maybe he forgot I was there?  I ended up in the lumber department, where various burly men turned to look at me as if to say you’re in the wrong place, miss.

By the time the eighth employee asked if I was SURE I didn’t need anything, I said “Well, my husband kind of left me here.  If I’m still here at closing time, I might need a new husband.  Or a ride home.”  The young employee laughed a little nervously.  Was that the wrong thing to say?  In any case, it was only a few minutes after that my husband appeared with a number of vents and something completely unrecognizable but apparently related to the ventilation project.  He suggested I go find the checkout line and he would meet me there.  On the way I stopped by the display of gardening gloves, engaging in conversation yet another employee who gave me some unsolicited information on the various types of gloves.  Possibly I was on the closed-circuit video: she’s finally on the move!  Catch up with her in the gardening glove section!  In any case, it took me a few minutes to get to the checkout, when I saw from a distance my husband looking around for me.  “Where did you go?” he asked, frustratingly.  Where did I go?  Pot and kettle, I swear.

It was still better than the Home Depot-related trauma I suffered last year when we were doing our renovations and I was tasked with picking out fixtures.  I recall wandering around Home Depot, completely overwhelmed by the choices and close to tears, snapping pictures at random and probably raising the ire of the employees, who may or may not have seen me as some kind of competitor spy.

In any case, we now have a whole lot of dirt, the weekend is looking lovely, and I am soon going to have the shiniest sink since Hannah went all fly-lady on me. Also, it’s Friday and it’s golf season, which means wine, Greek salad, and a whole lot of NYPD Blue.  What are you doing this weekend, dear readers?  I hope something lovely. xo