I Hate Home Depot

I hate Home Depot almost as much as I hate snakes, and even more than I hate the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Yankees. I hate it more than I hate broccoli and beets, and almost as much as I hate O. J. Simpson.

Home Depot stores are way too big and way too intimidating, and they make me feel totally inadequate. When I’m shopping for something, the employees can direct me to the right aisle, to the right shelf in that aisle, and to the right place on the shelf, and I still have no idea what I’m looking at.

Also, despite the fact that they have a large number of employees, there’s always one too few when I get there. Every helpful employee is already talking to a customer, and every customer has a helpful employee to talk to. So I always park myself on the periphery of one of these conversations and wait for it to end.

Of course, I have no idea when that might be, because I cannot understand anything they’re saying. I recognize isolated words, like “rivets” or “caulking” or “voltage,” but when put into the context of a Home Depot sentence, their meaning is completely obscured. It’s like being in a foreign country, without any of the good vacation stuff.

Did I mention that I hate the place?

However, my pre-trip planning inevitably took me to the local Home Depot, to try to bring my big idea to fruition. I asked for the fencing department and was directed to an area about twelve miles from where I was standing. Walking from one end of that store to the other makes me feel like I’m going the wrong way on a people mover; I never seem to make progress getting there.

But when I finally arrived, I was shocked to find an employee walking through the department, and he stopped, smiled, and asked if I needed help.

I didn’t know whether to talk to him or hug him.

I start every sentence I speak at Home Depot with the words “I have no idea what I’m talking about, but…” I say this even if I’m just asking where the restroom is. It places me in context, and insulates me from the subsequent and inevitable realization the salesperson would otherwise have that I have no idea what I’m talking about. My ignorance defines me, and I’m comfortable with that.

I told the guy that we were traveling cross-country with twenty-five dogs, waited for the surprise and laughter to run its course, and then told him what I was hoping to do. “I want fencing that we can put up and take down in a few minutes, and that will be strong enough that the dogs won’t just run over it. We want to set up mini dog parks wherever we go.”

“No problem,” he said, as if he got requests like that every day. He took me to an area that had rolled-up plastic fencing and recommended two hundred feet of it. He also had stakes that could be placed into the fencing at whatever intervals we chose, and that could then be easily driven into the ground.

“So this can work?” I asked, since I’m not used to my ideas being feasible.

He shrugged. “Don’t see why not. Is there anyone to stand around it and make sure the dogs don’t try to crash it?”

I nodded. “We have eleven people.”

He seemed surprised. “Friends of yours?”

“For now. That should last until Utah at the latest.”

In order to reduce the chance that I would screw things up, I asked him to show me exactly how to set up the fence, including and especially how to put the stakes in the ground. Of course he made it look easy.

“You look like the kind of guy that would enjoy a trip like this,” I said.

He laughed. “No chance.”

“You sure? An opportunity to see the world … interact with wildlife … make new friends…”

He was not to be convinced, so I thanked him, loaded the fencing into the car, and left. I felt like I had accomplished something physical, which is not a feeling I have very often. Maybe when I got home I could build a room onto the house or plow the lower thirty.

But the fact was that we were actually finally getting close to ready. We had the vehicles lined up, the people set and willing to go, and a plan, such as it was, in place.

Cyndi Flores was constantly evaluating what we were doing, and coming up with risk assessments on what could go wrong and how to cope with it if it did. Here’s a chart she sent me, and when you read it, please keep in mind that this is a person I had never met.

Can you see why I named her Grand Exalted Empress of the Trip?