Thursday, April 17, 2008

Embracing my inner dude

I love Home Depot. LOVE it. If I were a carpenter, contractor, plumber...and, well...a guy...Home Depot would be my wet dream. I love the smell. I love the guy-gadgets. I LOVE the paint section...I'm secretly envious of the Clairol #5 redheaded old lady who works behind the counter, having the power at her fingertips to give you the exact color you requested off of the paint sample card, or, if she doesn't like the looks of you, add a little more yellow or a little less raw umber, giving you not Stowe White, as you requested, but paint that is instead the color of infected pus. We made a trip to Home Depot over the weekend to get some supplies needed to finish up the baby's room, and I was prepared to leave there happy.

Until it was time to check out.

I have a thing about self-checkouts in stores. If the store is equipped with one of these glorious devices, then I have to use it. I have to. I tend to get into arguments with the computerized "lady" in the computer (or Jillian, as I tend to name every computerized checkout lady) at these terminals, though - she'll overcharge me, or register something twice or not at all, and then it turns ugly. I end up calling her something along the lines of "stupid checkout whore" and she usually ends up winning - which means an actual store employee needs to interfere in some way to enter his/her magical employee ID number to silence Jillian from her cry of "Assistance needed! Assistance needed!" Forcing me to interact face-to-face with an actual person? Oh, Jillian - it's on!

This trip to Home Depot, though, seemed to be without a checkout altercation. Jillian welcomed me and did her job expediently and correctly. She politely told me that it was time to pay, and when I went to select my payment method, smiling as I was pleased with the smooth transaction, I noticed that she was flashing me a sign on the monitor that read "UNEXPECTED ITEM IN BAGGING AREA." I reached over and tried to clear the message, but the screen continued to glare at me. "UNEXPECTED ITEM IN BAGGING AREA." Ohhh, Jillian - are you accusing me of shoplifting? We were getting along so well. And then I realized....no, this wasn't an accusation of breaking the law. My stomach - my swollen, aching, 35-week-pregnant stomach - was touching the bag sensor. No, Jillian was not accusing me of trying to steal an item from the store. Bitch was calling me fat!

Ohhhh, no you didn't, Jillian. It should've been on like Donkey Kong, but lucky for you the Hubs ushered me on my way. Besides - sticks and stones may break my bones....but I walked out with an extra paint stick and about 100 Mickey Mouse paint sample cards for baby boy, and you didn't even notice. Oh yeah - and a $200 gas grill.*




*disclaimer - the grill thing was a joke. a joke. the paint stick and sample cards are free, so if you're a lawyer or someone from Home Depot looking to sue me....well, you can't. come to my house and see that there's no gas grill. the sweet-ass cordless drill, though? well - i'll call it a gift. besides - i'm 4 weeks away from having my second kid. now i've REALLY got nothin'.


the drill. a joke. i long for a cordless drill. and one of those black and decker thingies that assists you in hanging your pictures straight by shooting a laser beam out of either side when you hang it on the wall. hey black and decker - since i'm too cheap to buy one myself, why don't you send me one for free and i'll give it rave reviews on my blog? e-mail me at mckenzie underscore haskell at yahoo dot com.

3 comments:

Samantha said...

I love the self check too!

Unknown said...

I am obsessed with reading your blog. Please write a book. :)

Matter Of Fact Mommy said...

i always go to the self checkout. because, who wants to interact with the disgruntled checkout people? they stink.

mother's day is coming up. perhaps you could ask hubby for one of those cordless drills. perhaps as appropriate as when my father gave my mother a lawnmower on mother's day because "YOU LOVE TO MOW THE LAWN!"