I had to go to Home Depot. I hate Home Depot; I did not want to go to Home Depot. On Saturday I bought some items and asked that they be delievered. Fifty-dollar charge, they said - or, I could rent a truck for $20 an hour, drag the stuff home myself. It was possible that it would take two hours, in which case I’d save a mere ten bucks. Even saving $30 wasn’t worth it. Time is money. Vice versa. I asked the clerk if they could just put the stuff on the back porch -
“Curbside drop-off is all we do,” he said. “If you want it placed elsewhere, call the number on the top of the invoice on Monday and tell them what you want.”
So today I called the number. “Sir, curbside dropoff is all we do for legal reasons,” said Lori in Shipping. “You will have to come to the store and sign a waiver.”
“Now, wait a minute,” I said, and my tone was steely. Lori had given me that voice that says It’s Policy. The voice that says I don’t make the rules, I just enforce them with great relish.
I don’t have any time for this voice anymore. I’m not interested in playing nice when I hear that voice. But this is a dilemma. I make it a rule not to be harsh to employees unless they’ve really asked for it. The fellow who gave me the erroneous instructions was, himself, an Ass; he’d pointed out with a huff that making up this order was NOT the sort of thing he was supposed to do. (“They’re supposed to do this at their station,” he huffed.) And even though he was a dichwahd through the entire transaction, I thanked him profusely at the end, because I didn’t want to add to the general amount of free-flowing HATRED that swirls in the tall aisles of Home Depot, Bloomington. I was a waiter for six years. I have been a convenience store clerk. I have worked phones. I know what it’s like. I treat these people with respect until they demonstrate that they don’t deserve it.
Even then, I can’t bring myself to unload. Let’s say I manage to utterly ruin Lori From Shipping’s day. Will it change her modus operandi? Her tone of voice, her attitude, her opinion of the customer in general? No - it will reinforce everything she believes about the teeming, grasping, jerkwad masses. So there’s no point in getting mad. There’s no point in unloading.
I told her I’d come to the store.
“Sorry for the inconvenience,” she said.
“Oh, it’s much more than an inconvenience,” I snapped, and hung up. Fumed all the way to the store. Rush hour traffic. Reruns on the radio, interviews I’d heard before. I formulate what I’m going to say:
You can read about this on page 3B of the metro section of the Star Tribune, I’ll say. Yeah! By God, if they’re going to inconvenience me, I’ll inconvenience them. Bad publicity. Names named. I’ll never shop there again, I’ll proclaim it in print and exhort the readers to shun them as well.
Twenty-five minutes later I pull into the parking lot. I grab a bag I’d brought along - two halogen lights I want to exchange. I think: this really blunts my ability to be righteously annoyed. You made me come here for nothing! Oh, and I’d like to exchange these items.
I put the bulbs back in the car. I’ll exchange them later. Even though I’m about to announce in print that I’ll never shop there again. . . .well, I’ll make one exception. One. Then never again!
I go to Special Services, as instructed. I explain the situation. The clerk says “I don’t have that form. You’ll have to go to checkout number one.”
A manager has been paged for another matter; when he’s done talking to two fellows, he takes up my case. He agrees: checkout number one is our destination. We start the trek to checkout one. He’s twice my height, gray-haired, late fifties. Nice guy. En route, I explain my frustration. “Why can’t you hire people who will deliver the goods to the house?” I said. “Can’t you find a company willing to deliver stuff properly?”
“Oh, it’s the tires,” he says. “The tires on the trucks can really tear up a lawn.”
I - stop - dead. “I don’t live in the middle of an oasis!” I snapped. “It’s 20 feet from the alley to my back door! Why can’t they drive down the alley, park the truck, and carry the stuff inside?”
He finds the form. As he’s filling it out, he mutters:
“This is just ridiculous.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s ridiculous.” He pauses, looks at me, and gives a nervous grin. “I know you,” he says.
“Excuse me?”
“I read you in the paper. I like your column.”
“And I’m about an inch from writing a column about this whole experience,” I say -
“Oh, noooo, oh, no, I don’t want to end up in your column,” he says.
And now allll my fury gurgles out and swirls down the drain. “Don’t worry,” I said, “You’ve been very helpful, and I know you didn’t set the policy.”
So now I’m placating him.
I sign the waiver.
I turn to leave.
“You know,” he said, “I thought you’d be taller.”
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