Yesterday I braved the wilds to forage for food at the local Wal-Mart only to be beaten by the ravaging pack of wolves that had been unleashed on their lunch breaks. The shelves were picked bare, leaving behind only one lone bowl of Dinty More (the soup that eats like a meal) and a few packages of Oriental flavoured Ramen noodles. I chronicled how I was humiliated beyond belief when I dared to ask the clerk if there were anymore snow shovels. He offered me a garden shovel, but he was laughing so hard that I just walked away.
When I got off work last night, I went to the dentist so I didn’t have time to skulk around the hardware stores looking for a shovel. I woke up bright and early to get in to the job and out in all possible haste. I despaired because we only have one shovel at the house, and really it just makes more sense to have two when you have multiple occupants. No way do I want to be breaking my back while someone else lords over me.
I got to work at 5AM and I immediately begin hounding all of the hardware homepages (Lowe’s, Home Depot, Ace Hardware). Lowe’s flat out tells me, “WE AIN’T GO NO MORE SHOVELS.” There website says “sold out” at all the Lowe’s within a 200 mile radius. Forget them. Home Depot doesn’t even list shovels on their page at all. Every time I tried to search, I came up with an error. Do they or do they not sell shovels? Who even knows. Ace Hardware says they have shovels, but they can’t tell them which stores are in stock. At 655, I go out to my car with all these phone numbers to stores in the area. I don’t want to waste precious time driving from one end of the city to the other looking for a shovel.
I called Ace first since they were closest. “Good morning, I have an insane question.”
“I’m sorry we are out of shovels, salt, snow blowers and anything even remotely related to winter.”
“Thank you and have a good day.”
I tried to call Home Depot but they “aren’t open” even though it is now after 7AM. Target doesn’t open until 8, so I might as well just drive down to Home Depot to waste some time and then check out Harbour Freight and Target on the way back to the job. I get to Home Depot and as I’m parking, I see several people coming out of the store with shovels. LUCK!
I rush inside the store. “Where are the shovels?”
The bored salesclerk says, “Right there.”
They didn’t even bother taking them out of their shipping boxes. They just dumped the palettes onto the floor, and it was like a free for all. Anybody would have thought they were giving away gold ingots. I grab one, but of course, I’m an idiot because I want to examine the quality of the shovel. Is it ergonomically correct? How will this fit in my hand? Let me give it a few practise digs before I take it home. As if I have other options!
Once again, there were people going completely overboard. Now, I know this is America and we’re all capitalist or whatever, and maybe we need to stimulate the economy somehow, but do you really need EIGHT shovels. Seriously. There was a woman who had eight shovels in her basket. Her husband had three in his. I’m sure they were going to sell them. I don’t believe that they were “getting them for someone else,” as the woman apologetically explained to the cashier in front of me. Yeah right.
Anyway, I’m glad I got one and it didn’t take too much effort. I head out to the car and there’s a guy parking right next to me. He sees the shovel in my hand. “I hope there’s some more,” he said desperately.
You better hurry up, buddy.
I bet they’ll be sold out of shovels by 815.
This is dedicated to Felecia who told me that Home Depot and Lowe’s gets a delivery truck every Tuesday and Thursday night.
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