Retirement, Day 23.
I had to buy a new light switch for the bathroom. In the end I didn’t need a new light switch, but I thought I did, so I went to Home Depot.
Home Depot shoppers always seem to know what I need and form a small gauntlet around the shelf. This day was no different, two people, with huge orange carts full of electric parts, switches, outlets, faceplates, little boxes of electrical things, alien and mysterious, parked right in front of the single pole, 20-amp, AC quiet toggle switch, white. Another guy paced back and forth, his cell phone pushed hard against his face talking about fixtures and voltage and wire gauges. He was intense, but polite, he flowed between the carts, the shoppers and the displays, weaving his way, the laws of fluid motion on display. One of the shoppers wandered over to look at breaker box switches and I made my move, grabbed a switch and made my way down to the end past the spools of wire and the terrifying machine to measure and cut it to length.
The electronics aisle runs parallel to the store front and the long main passage that runs down the center of the store. It was early, and a weekday, so many people were at work, and it was raining, there were only a few shoppers.
It was nice to be out, I don’t go anywhere anymore. I’ve become a recluse; retirement has been like the pandemic. A living room cage, a trip to the basement for paper towels is a vacation, I forget there are people out there. There weren’t many people, it was like an introductory course.
Moving down through the plumbing displays, the number of sinks, and vanities, and faucets was amazing. How could you possibly choose one. There was a sink that came with a working surface, like a cutting board. It was beautiful. There were gadgets and gizmos and magic things that I didn’t understand. I saw an electric toilet, which didn’t sound like a good idea.
I walked through the tool aisle. Cordless everything. Things I never knew were even electric. An electric, rechargeable, caulking gun. Oh, imagine the mess I could make with that. I could cover the entire kitchen or bathroom with white silicon, everything would be water resistant. I could send my wife into a rage in half the time. Technology has come so far. There were dozens of different saws. Hammers, different shapes and sizes, weights, knives of all types, retractable, replaceable blades. Some wicked looking knifes gleaming in the fluorescent light. Why do they need so many different knives?
It was nice, I only saw one other customer, a handsome woman, I would guess in her fifties, jet black hair, her pale complexion seemed flawless, she wore dark, wrinkle free blue jeans, a spotless white shirt with ¾ length sleeves, and perfect white tennis shoes, tied in precise bows. She could have been a Macy’s mannequin.
In fact, I never saw her move, I saw her in three different aisles, and every time she was holding something in her right hand, slightly above her waist, examining it with unblinking intensity. Standing next to her was a Home Depot associate, leaning against the shelf, he appeared to be stifling a yawn. Looking back, she might have been a mannequin, and the employee was just moving her around, making it look as if they had a thoughtful, thorough shopper and an attentive, devoted clerk. Or maybe the employee snuck the mannequin so he could spend his whole shift leaning on shelves all over the store. Either way I was impressed with the planning required.
I decided to cruise the lumber section, where real men go to commune over healthy doses of caffeine and testosterone. If you’re lucky someone will need wood cut to size, and the bickering about the maximum number of free cuts, watching the employee roll his eyes toward the heaven for strength. Followed by the scream of the vertically mounted table saw as it rips through a sheet of ¾” plywood, the smell of sawdust and the shriek of the blade, and the quiet disgust of the aproned person as he unloads the pieces and places them in the cart as he wipes the sweat from his weathered brow. The words don’t you own a saw? Fighting to break out of his tightly clenched lips.
They were having a big meeting, employees packed on both sides of the aisle, by the saw. I didn’t want to intrude, they seemed so serious. I walked to the back of the store and came down the row one past the meeting. It was breaking up, with a thoughtful reminder to be careful, keep eyes open and lift with legs, not backs…
It was nice, being someplace, anyplace. I soaked up the atmosphere, the scent of electric forklifts and indifference. The low buzz of associates mingling, just off screen, sentences just below audible. It was nice to know there was still life, still commerce, the wheels of capitalism were still churning, grinding over consumers and contractors alike. I paid for my light switch, $4.03 cents, went home and installed it. The light still didn’t come on. I think the fixture went bad. At least that’s my next trip to the hardware store.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
