girly goes shopping

Today didn't suck too much. I got my paper handed in, and at least that's some relief. After class, I decided to go pick up something at Office Depot, or Max, or whatever. I searched around for twenty minutes, couldn't find what I was looking for, and finally gave up and left. Why is it that whenever I go in for something that they do have, I am some kind of sales associate magnet--literally--I will have five sales associates ask me if I need help, but when I need one, they're nowhere to be found? The only associate I saw was at the front register.

So whatever. I'll look on line at Staples (not Office Whateverinthehell...they're on my shit list right now) or eBay, or something. I hate getting totally ignored; that's why, after probably upwards of fifty visits over the course of a few years, last year I solemnly vowed to never set foot inside a Home Depot again. And I shan't.

What I consider to be Home Depot's crowning achievement was a few years ago, when I was helping with teambuilding exercises for Eviljob. They were these dumbo exercises through some vendor that were inane, butsoanyway. One of them involves some rope and those little clips everyone puts their keys on that are aluminum, and in all different colours, and the cute little label on them warns not to engage in mountain climbing with them, or somesuch.

What spoilsports. Butsoanyway...

Some rat bastard stole our rope and clips. We'd set up different activity points at this section of a nearby park we'd rented for two weeks (to take all the building's teams through; we figured they'd like getting outdoors, and 99% of them did). So we set up our "radioactive waste" exercise (don't even ask; it's soooooo freaking dumb) off over *there*. When we went to do it, the ropes and clips were thefted. Can you believe the nerve of some people?!?

My thinking was that we scrap the dumbass exercises and go on a manhunt for the sick creep that did it; I figured he was probably somewhere nearby, trying to tie a squirrel up and clip it to a picnic grill so that he could have his way with it. Or maybe he was tying himself up, and trying to figure out how to make "come hither" noises in Squirrelese. Who knows? Regardless, my vote was that we track him down and beat him to death.

Ok, so I didn't actually *share* my thoughts on the matter. :-) It's not my own particular...idiom. ;-) I instead attempted a rescue by calling lunch early and running off to Home Despot.

Yeah, I meant to do that. Butsoanyway...

Not only did I have to find, measure, and cut my own rope myself (after waiting politely for probably about ten minutes right by the rope and cutting table, looking expectantly), but while waiting and before I started cutting, I was ignored by a few employees, who instead went off to help men! So I got my rope, and went off in search of clippy things. I had no idea where they are, and had to chase employees--literally!--all over the store. One I called to as I was at the foot of one aisle, and he up in the top fourth; he heard me, looked my way, and then decided to go help a man at the top of the aisle.

Ok. That pissed me off. I'm on a schedule here, remember? Eviljob is tight with their schedules, and I still have to get something to eat, for crying out loud. I'm only getting one lunch break per day!

And I'm not trying to sound...jerky, or anything, but I would think that an at-least-reasonably attractive girl, dressed somewhat professionally (Eviljob has its standards, even for trainings-in-the-park, you know) would be able to snare at least a little male attention. I mean, I know I'm not a beast, and I know I don't look like a bum--get my drift? Cute girl has money. Cute girl want spend money. It's that simple, and somehow places like Nordstrom get it (I get ambushed by the male clerks there, more than any other place, and they're not all gay, believe it or not) places like...oh, why go on? You get what I am saying. Plus, I'm wandering the damn store in heels (ok, they were low heels, suitable for the park, but you get my point) actively *looking* for help. And I can't rustle up a single associate to save my soul.

Now, Ancodia here is by no means a helpless female. She has put in time working tech in the theatre, and did more than her share of hauling furniture (by herself!) up and down from the prop room, putting together sets, and so forth. Never once has Our Brave Girl flinched at the sound of a nail gun. A really big one. That was loud. And unwieldy. Never once did our Mistress Of The Booth hesitate to unload lumber with the best of 'em, to screw butt hinges until 4 a.m., when her wrists were numb, to...

Ok...I just like saying "screw butt hinges". :-) Always have.

My point is, I've been there, done that. I could do it again if I had to. Someday I might even *want* to again, but I don't right at this moment. If I ever manage to get myself married off, it's ok with me if he wants to play Handyman; Ancodia can hold stuff for him, or think up new and creative ways to distract him while he's fixing the garbage disposal. :-)

God, I have a dirty mind. Sigh.

My point is that I'm neither totally incompetent, nor do I look incompetent. My personal take on the matter is that, hardware-wise, I look like an easy sell.

So I'm getting ignored, and I'm pissed. I stalk towards the front of the store and encounter "George", who obviously failed Hide-and-Seek in primary school.

"Don't you dare move," I tell him. Yes, Ancodia will get bitchy, if you piss her off enough.
"Ok, I gotta..."
"No, you don't. Take me to the clippy things. Now."

George and I haggled for a moment over what "clippy things" were, and he found them for me. I looped my rope around one and realised that I'd cut my rope too short. I demanded that George accompany me back to the rope.

As he's measuring and cutting, George decides to turn into a wise acre; "So who're you gonna tie up with the rope?", he leers.

Don't kid yourself; Ancodia has lost all hope of lunch, and is by no means in the mood to put up with this right now.

"You, if you don't move it." I *told* you I can be a Bitch if provoked!

"Awww," George protests, "I'm just teasin' ya."

I explain to George that I would have taken it better if what was supposed to have been a twenty minute trip hadn't stretched to fill an entire hour, and that after the way I've been treated, I'm half-tempted to visit my doctor to make sure I don't have cooties, or leprosy, or something.

George thinks this is funny. No apology. Just funny. He nods, even. Now he's all helpful, even encouraging, making sure I don't need anything else. WTF?

If this was designed to make me feel like the biggest raving bitch on the face of the Earth, it's working. My guilt switch has a hair-trigger. I apologise to George, who is still getting some major amusement out of something, and take off. As I'm leaving, I decide I'm never going back to Home Depot, a decision I change my mind on within a few months. And I get ignored again. And I go back again. And get ignored again. And again. And again.

Ancodia begins to notice a trend.

I mention this casually one day to my son-friend, who was a manager for ten years (he's way older than me, did I mention that?) at an Ace Hardware franchise. Son-friend fills me in; I look like Walking Trouble, he says.

And how does he figure that? Wanna know? I sure did.

I look like "walking trouble" in a hardware store, he explains, because I just look like the kind of girl who has just moved into a new home, and decided home remodelling isn't all that hard and want it all done my way anyway. If I walked into Home Depot and he was working there, he elaborates, he'd figure I'd just finished doing something utterly moronic like measuring out my kitchen with a sewing ruler, then done something irreparable like bashing off my kitchen countertop and shelving because I hated it and thought it was ugly, and was presenting myself at Home Depot, thinking I was going to just swing by, pick up some marble and shelves , cram them all into my compact car, and go home and put the new stuff up by evening so I can start cooking in my new kitchen.

Oh, spare me.

What's worse, he continues, is that I look like I'm not going to listen to whomever tells me it can't be done that way. I will insist. Once I get home and find that it won't work, I will come back. Girls Like Me, he says, are the Repeat Customers From Hell; they won't listen to a thing you say until about the fifth repeat trip. By then, their kitchen (or whatever) looks like Beirut. It's unuseable. They're pissed. And they've already spent more than it would have cost them to just hire someone to do it.

And to top it all off, he finishes, about then they usually offer you money to come over and do it for them. By the time they get to that point, they're usually about to start crying, if they aren't already. He insists that this has happened to him more times than he can remember.

"I do not ever look like that," I protest, "and what's so wrong with measuring with a paper sewing ruler?"

"My point exactly," he says.

Sometimes my son-friend really pisses me off.

I didn't think anything was wrong with measuring with a sewing ruler because I'd never done it, not because I'm stupid. Once he explained that they are notoriously inaccurate, I got it. Now, in truth, I might not have noticed that they were inaccurate, but I'm not sure I own one anyway, so the world is safe. I own a real ruler. So whatever.

So I won't go to Home Depot, I'm temporarily ticked at Office Whatever, and I'd rather shop for the laptop desk thingy I need online anyway. And I kicked my son-friend under the table several times while he was being needlessly unkind. And wrong.

So there.

Hmmph.