1. Cable guy? To the house but then denied the ability to DRILL HOLES IN MY FLOOR!!!!!!!! Jesus Christ, of course I want you to reschedule and send someone who can fish a line down a wall.
2. Cleaning crew? Scheduled and will walk through the apartment tomorrow and give me an estimate.
3. Truck? Scheduled.
4. Dad? Arrived and given tasks.
5. The Butcher? Grouched at and fussed over. But let me just say this, if you are the Butcher’s friend and he has ever done anything for you like helping you move or helping you paint and you do not show up on Saturday to help us move, you are forbidden from ever coming to our house. Seriously, if I catch you in my house, I will stab you with a knife or my dog, whichever is closer at hand. So far the list of folks thus allowed at our house who know the Butcher are the girl who helped paint, her husband, and the Redheaded Kid.
6. Walmart? I have turned EVEN MY FATHER–who I assumed was just going to go to work for Walmart as a greeter when he retired he loved them so much–against them. We went to Walmart last night to get keys made, ibuprofen, and covers for switches and outlets. There were no switch covers on the shelf so we had the chick who was making our keys page once for help in hardware, no one came. We had electronics page once for help in hardware, no one came, and then electronics paged twice for a manager, because they were frustrated no one came to hardware and a manager never showed up. So, we put everything but the keys and the ibuprofen back and went over to Lowe’s.
At Lowe’s we were greated by a dude who knew immediately which aisles had the things we needed in them and (and this is where I was like “Oh, Walmart, you may be in real trouble”), they were stocked and a penny cheaper than at Walmart.
Because Walmart can get away with a lot if they’re the cheapest game in town, but when they’re not?
Cue the ominous music.
7. Mack? Listened to tough but reassuring things from.
8. The Professor? Listened to tough but reassuring things from.
9. The dog? Switched to Target’s glucosamine pills and I can’t decide if I’m seeing a marked difference or just imagining it, but let’s go with seeing one.
10. Naps? Two hours in the afternoon while I waited for my dad and one on the couch after dinner and before bed.
11. Girly problems? Subdued.
12. Correct Tiny Cat Pants anniversary? Duly noted.
13. World Economy? Well, I have tried repeatedly this month to completely collapse it, but clearly I’ve only been able to bring it to the brink. I’ll try again today.
Tiny Cat Pants 
Yes, Lowe’s knows. They are the Target of home improvement stores.
What does Target know? I ask as a K-Mart shopper.
Our K-Marts up here are terrible. They are badly lit, the merchandise is all disorganized, the aisles are dirty, and it always looks like you’ve caught them doing inventory. I have been in good K-Marts, but I think our cluster of them must be very badly managed. Being in receivership probably didn’t help.
We recently got a Super Wal-Mart in our small town (had been driving 25 miles to get to one), and I’ll tell ya what, for the stuff I really need, I drive the 25 miles to the one in Alexandria. The W-M in our town is the poorest stocked store I’ve ever seen (talk about empty shelves, and piss-poor selection when they are stocked). And don’t even get me started on how many check-out aisles are manned (if it’s after 5 p.m., you’re lucky if 3 aisles are manned out of 20, and it doesn’t matter how many people are in line waiting to check out). They used to have the electric carts for the disabled right by the door where you come in (on the grocery side), but they’ve added one of those RedBox DVD movie things where the carts were parked, so now the electric carts are parked down that little hallway thingy past the candy and stuffed animal machines are (they tried parking them where the shopping carts are, but no one could get in past the shopping carts to get one out). Yeah, let’s just make it real easy for our disabled customers to shop here.
Although, they did take my suggestion to move some of the cart corrals down by the handicapped parking spaces. I told them that if someone was using those spaces because they couldn’t walk very far, did they really think the people were going to walk halfway across the parking lot to put away a shopping cart? That suggestion must have been passed around, because I’ve seen it at other Wal-Marts in the area.
Bridgett, that sounds like my K-Mart. I shop there anyway, because they have what I want, even though I sometimes have to dig through some piles for it.
I said tough things? I meant to merely be supportive and encouraging and helpful; I guess sometimes that means tough too but I didn’t mean to yesterday. Sorry.
And, I hate Lowe’s – its all principle though, not bad experiences. But they’re manipulative liars who claim to give you the cheapest price – and will pay if you get cheap stuff – but they then get their own model numbers so that you can’t compare prices. That’s low and I refuse to support it.
The Professor speaks the truth about Lowe’s, but I consider them the least of all the evils. But when buyblue.org was still up and running, it noted that Lowe’s gave more money to Democrats and Home Depot was almost exclusively Republican, so that’s how I made my choice. And I’ve been really happy with them. The service is really good there…
Yes, the buyblue.org thing was important for me too. Those of you who work in the industry, is there any big-box that does price guarantees that doesn’t also manipulate consumers and their suppliers simultaneously with the “that’s not our model no.” song and dance? I sort of thought that that was the way that trick worked.
And to think I went to Lowe’s over lunch. Damnit! The commies have my money!
That’s alright. I’ve spent most of my summer’s income at Home Depot. I more than balance you out.