Psychotic scavenger hunt

[mrissa]

I came home today with tacos for timprov, a hole-punch, a plate for the light switch in the music room, a 60# bag of sand, two 40# bags of water softener salt, a new lever-arm for one of the toilets, and some flour tortillas. I feel like I was sent on the most boring scavenger hunt on the planet. If you give me a minute, I'm pretty sure I can get some dryer lint to add to the collection.

The happy thing about this is that most of these things have straightforward purposes. I took the hole-punch out of its packaging, punched a hole in my calendar, and hung the calendar on last year's calendar's nail. Calendar on the wall, hole-punch in the desk drawer, problem solved. How...straightforward. How unlike anything even remotely related to fiction.

Well, if it was straightforward, it probably wouldn't be as satisfying when things work out all right. At least that's what I tell myself.

My current advice to you is not to go to a Home Despot on a day lots of people have off, especially if it's not a holiday in itself. If you must, my advice to you is not to be young and female. I feel sure that many of those men had seen an unaccompanied woman before, but you wouldn't know it from the staring. I kept wanting to check to make sure I hadn't had some critical garment failure or fountain pen incident or something else stare-worthy. Nope. And I haven't even dressed for dinner yet. Because, really, people ought to look at my boots. Because they are The Boots.

I am five years old again with these boots. I forgot to ask anybody to take my picture in them so far. I will try to remember soon. Boooooots.

Comments

[spaceoperadiva.livejournal.com]

I hate it when the staff tries to help me when I don't need any help. Can it really be that strange that I, in my non-penis owning state, might actually know what plumbing bits I need?

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

My mom loves hardware stores. Everyone is so helpful.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

They weren't, this time. They didn't leap to help me move the 60# bag of sand into my cart or my trunk. They just stared.

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

The bastards.

My mom, to be fair, prefers the local, ACE Hardware type of stores to the hardware warehouse stores. Maybe it's just the local hardware store people who are more helpful.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I've gotten help -- non-smarmy help, at that -- at this Home Despot before. I think it was just that yesterday was a day off for lots of people but not a holiday, so there were more recreational Home Despot users than average.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Apparently this is less of a problem either when you're in your late 30s, when you're accompanied by a Man, or when you are dressed somewhat oddly for a Home Depot visit. In other words, we stopped at a local HD after rowing yesterday, but I didn't notice more staring than usual. (Strange,because you'd think showing up in spandex tights would lead to more staring, not less.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, being accompanied by A Man always helps.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I think the effect is very like the Somebody Else's Problem field Doug Adams described.