Home improvement

Having zero interest in upgrading or updating my home, I try to stay out of hardware stores, especially the big ones like Home Depot and Lowes. If you think your home needs all sorts of improvement, then maybe you shouldn't have bought it in the first place. If you wake up one morning and life is no longer livable because you don't have granite countertops in your kitchen and mahogany floorboards-- well then just MOVE to a house that has these magical counter tops and rainforest-depleting floors. Then you'll be happy.

Still, there are times when it becomes necessary to make a pilgrimage to one or two of these massive hardware stores. There are times when you sell your house and the buyer's home inspector wants you to buy a bunch of smoke detectors and ground-fault interrupt electrical circuits. So, if you want to buy that wonderful new house with the aforementioned counter tops, you'll need to fix up the smoldering hovel you used to call home.

I last set foot in a home improvement center some time long ago in the last century, before the Great Granite Counter-Topping of the early Zeros (or whatever we have decided to call the last decade). It's amazing to see the sheer volume of STUFF these stores contain! You could, if you wanted to, just build ANOTHER house in your backyard with all the stuff they have in these stores.

My wife had stayed in the car to finish a phone conversation with her sister, who oddly enough is a lawyer specializing in real estate transactions. While they were discussing the merits of wired versus battery-operated smoke detectors and how this relates to the Magna Carta, I decided to get a head start on the project.

GFI Sockets.

These are handy little devices that will stop the flow of electricity through the outlet after you have been electrocuted. This is very handy for your heirs and assigns. After hiking seven miles, I made it to the mystical aisle where the leprechauns of Lowes keep their treasure trove of GFI sockets. I carefully considered the color choices, and then grabbed five. I also found five matching wall plates. I spent the next five minutes looking at the thousand different light switches they had, all the while imagining my wife's praise for my foresight in selecting those matching wall plates. She would see that I was doing my part in this deal! Perhaps she would even let me build a small house in the backyard of the new house. I was trying to figure out what sort of light switch to put in the little house, when my wife called me.
"Where ARE you?" she asked.
"In the electrical aisle."
"But where is that?"
"I think it's in a tunnel under County Cork in Ireland. But watch out for the leprechauns."
"You are a fuckwit. I'll be with you in a minute."

When she arrived, my wife took a look at the stuff in my cart.
"This is all wrong. You have to put it back." She did not praise my cleverness for remembering about the wall plate. Apparently some of the sockets were supposed to be 20 amp. I thought it sure would be nice if they put that sort of thing on the label, and when my wife pointed out the information on the actual label, I began to think that maybe it would have been simpler just to stay in the original house. But of course we can't do that, because it is sold. Or it is mostly sold once we get the smoke alas and sockets fixed. No going back now. But there will be probably many trips back to the home improvement store. It is like a purgatory you get sent to for your sin of coveting crap sold at the home improvement stores. I'm trying to escape, but I'm seven miles underground, and the leprechauns are about to take my money.