The customer is always right

No more Bloomfield Hardware

Yesterday (Friday, April 4, 2008) I had to go to the hardware store to buy a floodlight bulb, and a stainless-steel screw and nut to repair a broken plastic handle on an old Revere saucepan we inherited.
We have three floodlights in our backyard, and one blew the other night. We turn the floods on when we let our dog out.
So I swapped the bulbs around, swapping the little-used light for the one that blew.
I did this while Linda was out; “Don’t fall off the ladder,” she said.
Using care, I didn’t; and that included putting the ladder for the little-used bulb into the well for our Bilco-door.
I’ve been around long enough following the stroke that I can be safe with a little care and planning.
I have a choice of two different hardwares: -A) the one I usually go to in Honeoye Falls, which I know, or -B) the gigantic Bloomfield Hardware, which I’ve been to perhaps twice.
Both are equidistant (about five miles), but in opposite directions. I.e. the Honeoye Falls hardware is a trip to Honeoye Falls; and the Bloomfield Hardware is the other direction. (I also could go to Wal*Mart or mighty Lowes, but that’s a trip to Canandaigua — 15 miles.)
Since I also had to hit the Bloomfield post-office, I decided I’d go to the Bloomfield Hardware.
I walked in with the blown floodlight in the saucepan.
“Are you cooking that floodlight?” the store-owner lady asked.
“Yes I am,” I said. “Floodlights taste better cooked. No uncooked floodlights. They’re as bad as sushi.”
(“Ain’t eatin’ no sushi. Where I come from they call that stuff bait. —Waitress, ya forgot to cook this!”)
“I need to replace this floodlight,” I said.
“Ellery, can you help this gentleman find floodlights?”
Ellery, a surly old curmudgeon, was mopping an aisle, and far be it I should disturb his hallowed mission.
He continued mopping, finally grabbing my floodlight when he finished after a few minutes.
Off he zoomed, oblivious to the fact I was his customer. From deep within the bowels of the vast and secretive rental department he returned with a replacement floodlight.
“60, 75, 100 watts? Do you have any idea what this is?”
“That bulb is probably 18 years old,” I said. “Any markings it had are long-gone.”
“Probably 75 is enough. All I care about is that it be halogen.”
He returned with a 75-watt halogen.
“Now I need a stainless screw and nut to reattach this saucepan handle.”
He grabbed my saucepan with a great harumph, and disappeared quickly into another aisle.
I tried to catch him, but he was already trying various screws and nuts when I arrived.
I watched quietly. I’d prefer to find the hardware myself, but he wasn’t giving up my saucepan.
“I don’t care if the screw sticks out a little, but it looks countersunk — like it should use a countersunk screw.”
There were countersunk stainless screws available, but none were ever tried.
Finally Ellery took my saucepan to the checkout counter, took out a Phillips-head, and tightened everything.
“That’ll be $8.82,” he said, returning my saucepan with great flourish. (Floodlight and screws together.)
What am I, some utterly helpless fumble-fingered Granny that can’t reattach a saucepan handle? (“Oh dear!”) I got the motor out of the Crosley with the most rudimentary of hand-tools.
No more Bloomfield Hardware! Your Ellery turned off a customer.
“So maybe ya can go to the Honeoye Falls hardware and pick your own screws,” Linda said.
“Why bother?” I said. “Seems adequate.”

Our dog is “Killian;”a rescue Irish-Setter.

“Linda” is my wife of 40+ years.

I had a stroke October 26, 1993.

“Honeoye Falls” is a small village near where we live; so is “Bloomfield.” Honeoye Falls has a post-office too, but it’s less convenient.

RE: “That bulb is probably 18 years old.......” —We’ve been in our house 18 years.

A “Phillips-head” is a Phillips-Head screwdriver.

The “Crosley” is a tiny 1947 Crosley car my father got me when I was in high-school; a reject from a junkyard. I removed the motor; an overhead-cam four. We had it up on blocks inside our garage, so I could operate it. I ran it with all the garage doors open.