Lowe's vs. Home Depot

Loew’s vs. Home Depot. The contemplation is mind boggling. Well not so much for me. Well, that’s what I could catch myself thinking inside of Lowe’s. My sister’s boyfriend Mike and my father kept saying Lowe’s would have the piece needed to rescue the bathroom sink. I thought otherwise. “You’re crazy” I interjected. “Lowe’s is a mom and pop store you’re never gonna find it there “I replied. In reality, Lowe’s is not a mom and pop store and I’m not quite sure if I said that simply to be a jackass or because I really thought it was a bad store. In any account Mike didn’t take my advice and we went to Lowe’s.

It took us about 15 minutes to find the correct aisle to buy the piece needed for the sink and when we did there was a gentleman hovering over the area where the piece could be found. I kept thinking to myself maybe if I just tell him to step aside he will? Or perhaps something will catch his attention and he will be forced to go somewhere else? It didn’t take very long for the gentleman to take a hint and he stepped aside. My father and Mike kept searching and searching for the correct piece, which apparently was being sold by itself. I on the other hand, had other business to attend to. I had disappeared into the other aisle with my sister, Kendra, where she had curiously found a can of paint. I lifted up the can, inspected its small size and shape and told her I would roll it across Lowe’s. “You’re crazy” she said “You’d never do it”. Oh wouldn’t I? I thought. She apparently didn’t know me very well. “Alrighty I will”. So I took the can of paint rolled it across the floor and it exploded everywhere. Just kidding. It didn’t exactly explode or spill its contents anywhere, but I thought I would just say that for fun. No, it simply rolled and my sister then got mad at me for paying attention to her, by which I heard my voice and realized that we were still looking for that piece for the bathroom sink. “Over there” I told Mike. “That guy can help.” Which of course he did. He pointed us over to the right direction and instructed us as to where to get the piece. Unfortunately, as the song goes, it wasn’t what we were looking for. It cost 30 bucks and we only needed a piece of what was being sold. “Told you” I said. This store is terrible, Home Depot will have it. My sister looked at me and said “Looks like Hillary will get to go to Home Depot after all.” And we did.

When we arrived to Home Depot call it an instinct or call it wisdom but I just knew they would have that piece that would make my father’s Father’s Day. So we went straight to the aisle and lo and behold they were out of it. It was just our luck that a worker who we had questioned before on a previous visit was walking by. He was on his cell phone. We of course did not want to disturb the man that would save our day so we simply waited for him to get off the phone. He did and right then and there he said he could get the piece we needed from storage. He gave us that piece and tada I knew it Home Depot did have everything and it was better than Loews! Or so I thought. We got ready to leave the store and pay for the item when we all started to notice something somewhat fishy. There were no people working the checkout registers, they were all self-checkouts. I didn’t think much of it at first, even after we were sent to the wrong checkout aisle and brought back again, but after a double inspection I noticed there were only two workers. Possibly only three in the whole store! How could that be? My life, okay maybe not my life, but the store that I had so ardently publicized was without workers?! “Wow my father said, they are pretty thrifty around here, not to pay there workers, at least Lowe's pays their workers.” He was right. She was right. An incredulous smile came across my face and I realized my very superficial mistake.

-HS