“Many years ago, a friend sussed out the reason that men love Home Depot so much — they get to stand around in public together and scratch their balls . . . what part do I need for this? . . . uh, I dunno . . . you ever seen sumpin like this? . . . hell no, ask that guy . . . know where the john is? . . . damn, they got every size but this sucker . . . and so forth.”

– Linda of Many Children
 
Maybe I am not a real man. I hate the Home Depot. It gives me the creepie crawlies. I can never remember what I came into the place to do, all the endless choices, the bright lights, the sensory overload, crappie parking…well, you know.
 
That is up here in Northern Virginia. The Home Depot in Culpeper is a little more low-key, but I still screw up whatever I go in there to do. It took me two tries just to purchase a gas grill.
 
I shudder at the thought of the one down Route 50, where the DC Sniper killed that poor woman by the concrete pillar in Parking Aisle 2.
 
The two assholes lay in wait across the road, Mohammed-whatever-the-hell-his-name-was peered out the hole in the trunk, waiting in the soft evening light for the young couple to wheel their cart out to the car. Clear shot. Mohammed took it, and the husband stood in freaking disbelief as his bride expired on the pavement.
 
That is not the precise reason I don’t go there, but it is an example of why the whole Home Depot experience gives me the willies. I was not going to do it on Sunday, either. The place would be a madhouse. I was in mid-project, though, and a trip had to be made for a critical part to fix the sink.
 
Dremeling the screw on the sink went well enough, and that should have been enough to make the hair stand up on the back of my neck. I used the cutting wheel to slice a precise slot in the top of the buggered-out screw, only slightly marring the seat in the top of the handle. Fine brass dust blew up in my face.
 
I had to find a screwdriver short enough to work under the mirrored cabinet above, but voila! A few turns and the thing came right out. It wasn’t even stuck, and no WD40 was required to unseat it.
 
Then an adjustable wrench to turn the bras nut on the valve and out came the cylinder that contained a screw-driven piston that pushes the washer down on the top of the cold water supply.
 
Inspection revealed it was indeed worn, and permitted water to seep past even at maximum pressure. All I had to do was go to the hardware store, find a new washer and reassemble. Piece of cake, or at least it was after I found a plastic bag to put the cylinder in and wash the nasty pervasive black crap off my fingers.
 
I slid the bag in my jeans and climbed down five flights to the garage and launched the Bluesmobile toward Westover.
 
I am a Buckinghamster, as you know, and proud of the history of our garden apartment neighborhood as one of the first developments in what was rural and defeated Northern Virginia.
 
Grudgingly, I have to acknowledge that Westover has a history, too, and has remained a little more upscale than the Guatamarlington that now surrounds the proud tower of Big Pink.
 
Westover was developed by a guy named Miles A. Mace in the decade between 1939 and 1948, just about the same time Frances Freed was building Buckingham. Westover was Mace’s signature project, though he had been in the development game since the 1920s. His first project was Over-Lee Knolls, a play on the name of the Lee Highway. It was advertised in as “Virginia’s Ideal Suburb,” with quality dwellings.
 
That encouraged the County to permit the rezoning of 120 acres of farmland for a garden apartment complex containing a strip mall along Washington Boulevard. The neighborhood appears almost identical to Buckingham, just not as run-down.
 
Construction for the stores commenced in 1940, and there were originally a lucky thirteen of them, including a long-gone Safeway, a pharmacy (there was a time when they were not the same thing) and a “five and dime” store.
 
Mr. J. W. Ayers owned the five-and-dime from 1947 until he died in 1977, when the neighborhood was at nadir and everyone was nervous. The Kaplan family optimistically bought the place, ensured that the franchise to carry True Value-brand hardware was continued, and has faithfully served the community since.
 
I swerved into an open diagonal parking space right in front. Remember those? Ayers Variety is like driving right into 1957. No snipers at all.
 
The store is actually only about a third hardware store, with the rest an eccentric assortment of half five-and-dime stuff. They do not have building materials- drywall and lumber would take up too much space- but they have a comprehensive assortment of just about everything else.
 
Focused. It is the total opposite of the Home Depot’s alien vastness.
 
They have three aisles of densely packed merchandize. I stood there, struck dumb as always, comparing what had seemed to be the simple valve I brought in my pocket to the dozens on the racks in front of me.
 
It turned out that I had an infernal brass device, exotic, unlike anything else in all the world, or at least the rack of plumbing in front of me.
 
I could see nothing that might complete it. Mid project, sink inoperable, I was totally screwed. The trip to Ayers had been a red herring. I was doomed to carry on to the Home Depot after all, and probably wind up having to buy a whole new faucet, and it would be the wrong one that did not pit the hole in the sink and it was going to turn into a two weekend project and goddamn it why didn’t I just call the plumber?
 
Despondent, I wound up talking to the tall bearded man with the long goatee, elaborately tattooed arms and lip ring that featured two prominent silver balls capping each end.
 
Surreal? Of course. But the Kaplans have changed with the times, even if the store has not. The man was kind enough to go back to the valve section in the six feet of plumbing goods and show a genuine interest in my problem. He looked at all of the items and all the little drawers of rubber gaskets.
 
He seemed to feel my pain, and allowed as how I would have to go to a plumbing supply place to find what I needed.
 
I asked if I had to go to Home Depot, and he said, no, there is a place in Falls Church that specializes in these matters, and offered to write down the address.
 
“So I don’t have to go to scratch my balls with the other fetishists?” I asked, and he smiled, which made the lip-ring dance.
 
He looked intently at the washer we pried out of the cylinder. Suddenly, something occurred to him. “Wait a minute. Maybe we have something that will fit.”
 
He led me back to a blue metal case, unmarked, on a counter near the brackets and wood screws.
 
He raised the top and looked into two compartments, and then fished out a 20-cent washer that was a perfect fit for the exotic brass cartridge.
 
I stared at him in amazement as he wrote down the amount on a small brown paper envelope to show to the cashier.
 
I thanked him profusely. The afternoon was saved, and there was every possibility that I would not be brushing my teeth with scalding hot water, and the drip would be gone.
 
I suddenly had plenty of time. Getting back in the Bluesmobile, I wondered whether there was time to get a lip ring or maybe a tribal tattoo on the way home.
 
Instead, I stopped and bought a bike. But that is another story altogether.
 
Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Subscribe to the RSS feed!