February 21, 2020

Home Depot

So my brother sends me to Home Depot in order to get fencing he can put up to prevent the geese from wandering up from the beach and shitting on the grass. Seeing as geese can fly, I don’t really get why a three-foot fence is a very good deterrent but this is his plan.

The reason I am going to Home Depot is because I am a moron. Only a moron, when posited with the question of “what are you doing now?” would answer by saying “nothing.”

There is no possible worse answer. You are better off saying you are thinking of cutting your toenails.

But I say, “Nothing,” so off I go to Home Depot in order to buy a fence.

I understand a lot of men love Home Depot and hardware stores in general. I am not one of those men. I loathe Home Depot. I go less often than I go to synagogue. I would go as often if ever Home Depot hosted a bar mitzvah. I am as befuddled by people who build things as I am by people who pray.

I only have to get one thing. I have turned the ringer off in case my brother calls with another request. A wrench. A hoover. A two-by-four. Am just going to get the fence and leave.

I walk into Home Depot and look for someone wearing the distinctive orange apron. I don’t have to look far. Kris, with a K, is talking to a customer who has a flatbed full of wood and nails. I fight the urge to ask him what he is going to build. It looks like he has enough wood to build a house. Maybe he is just building an ark. I stand a few feet away and politely wait for their conversation to end. They don’t look over. I pretend to look at my phone.

Kris and the ark builder seem to know each other. They are talking about a mutual friend, whose name I do not catch, who, I kid you not, is going into rehab. Their nameless friend appears to have been some sort of meth head.

And so I wait.

Seems this is not the first time the nameless friend has been in rehab.

Neither Kris with a K nor the ark builder are particularly hopeful it will take this time.

Kris with a K is not unattractive.

I am quite prepared to have impure thoughts about Kris with a K until she turns to me and says, “What can I do you fer?”

And then not so much.

My brother would never have sent me to Home Depot unprepared. I have a picture of the fence on my phone. He has already bought 21 feet and now he wants to get 21 more.

The geese, I say, can fly.

But, what do I know.

“Am looking for fencing to prevent geese from wandering onto our property and shitting on our grass.”

I don’t actually say that.

What I say is that I am looking for some fencing.

Kris with a K says it is in the gardening centre. She points in the direction across the store.

“Over there?” I say, pointing helplessly in the opposite direction. Kris with a K wants to shunt me over to some useless colleague in the gardening centre. I have played this game before. Once you have a person with an orange apron, you don’t get rid of them.

“Hey, Kris,” I say. “What are you doing now?”

Kris with a K, God bless her, says, “Nothing.” So I convince her to walk to the gardening centre with me and show me.

We get to the fence section and I show her the picture on my phone. I am tempted to show her a picture of my niece Pnina. But I don’t want to push my luck.

Kris with a K looks at my picture and points at a piece of green fence.

“Here you go,” she says.

“This is it?” I ask.

“Yup,” she answers.

“Kris, this looks exactly like the picture on my phone.”

“Yes.” She is eager to please.

“Well that’s no good,” I say with a frown.

Kris with a K is a little confused.

“This is the exact fence you are looking for,” she says.

“Kris, I can’t go home with the exact fence I was sent to buy,” I explain patiently.

Now Kris with a K is beginning to realize how bad it is to say “nothing” when someone asks you what you are doing.

“I don’t understand.” Kris with a K looks like she might cry.

“Kris, if I come home with the right fence, then my brother will decide I am perfectly capable to go to Home Depot the next time he needs me to run an errand. I don’t want him to come to that conclusion. Find me something which will ensure that I will never be sent to Home Depot again. Can you show me something in a white picket fence?”

“You want a white picket fence?”

“Yes,” I say. “I think that would be perfect.”

“Okay.”

“And deliver it to the synagogue. I’ll pick it up the next time I go for Rosh Hashanah.”

The end.