Lowes Hates Me And I Hate It Right Back

by Kevin Burton

   Please know up front this is not one of my angry product/company boycott posts….but I hate Lowes.

   Please know that Lowes is our go-to store for all things home improvement. Just about all the problems we’ve ever had at Lowes were our own fault, because we bought the wrong thing.

   But I hate Lowes because Lowes hates me. Lowes hates me in the way certain spicy foods hate certain people.

   Everything and everybody in Lowes reminds me of what I am not good at, incapable of. It’s my personal house of horrors; horrible embarrassment. 

   Home improvements?  Sawing, nailing, wiring, caulking, hinges, flanges, ducts, pipes? You can pretty much count me out.

   Mr. Fix It? Try Mr. Forget It.

   If I want to feel even worse I can watch a You Tube video of how to do a project and then still mess it up. 

   We had an impossibly ambitious list of errands last Friday, and smack in the middle of it was, Lowes.

   “I hate Lowes,” I said as we approached the store.

   “I know,” my wife Jeannette said, resignedly, not breaking stride.

   Lowes is big. If by some fluke I know what to get there, it is humanly impossible to find it.  Bins, nothing but bins. Floor to ceiling and wall to wall, teeming with tools and fasteners.

   I even hate the fraction 7/8. Nothing I can handle involves 7/8. Lowes is full of 7/8.

    It’s the kind of place that will have Christmas trees up on Oct 6. Also not good.

   One good thing: we don’t fly so much anymore, so I now use my panicked, about-to-miss-my-flight face at Lowes. That look causes people wearing vests to put down their clipboards, and rush over to help. If the vest people don’t help, I will be in the store until it truly is time for Christmas trees.

    With help, we got some landscaping stuff and some ceiling tiles.

    I will not attempt the landscaping because people driving up and down our street would inevitably see the results. I can’t be responsible for gawking, pointing, laughing motorists who drive off the road into somebody’s mailbox.

   The ceiling tiles I will attempt, as a ham-handed assistant to Jeannette.  We need to replace at least two tiles to cut off access to the area above the ceiling for our new curious, Olympic-level leaper of a cat, Lakin.

   Jeannette once called me a cat whisperer, which I take as one of the greatest compliments I have received. There aren’t too many cat whisperers in Lowes.

   I got out of Lowes unscathed this time, I guess. But it makes my skin crawl.  I live in fear that while standing in the checkout line, some guy wearing a plaid flannel shirt will ask me a question about tubing.

   My hands are not calloused. Maybe my psyche is. What can I make?  I make mediocre, underdeveloped rock and roll songs.  I deal in words.

   I could be that construction supervisor from Schoolhouse Rock, you know, on Conjunction Junction. “Hooking up words and phrases and clauses.” That’s as hands-on as I can get.

   The all-time coolest thing in Lowes is a series of grills, gas grills, charcoal grills, in all shapes and sizes. Gleaming, glistening, monster mega-meat machines.

    I stop to tie my shoe, which isn’t untied.

   “No,” Jeannette says, not pausing to hear my rebuttal.

   So it’s off to find the 7/8 swiveling, beveled miter saw. Man I can’t even make a song out of this stuff.

   No, this is not another of my shoutouts to corporate greed. Lowes is actually quite good for other people. It has its place next to quiche, or bluegrass, for people who care to consume such things.

   I’d rather stay home writing, wielding my 7/8 metaphor tool, with precision and exactitude.