I had to go to one of the local Home Depots the other day, well I didn't
actually have to but it was on the way home and I needed the stuff and I
knew that they'd have it and besides the girl who sells hotdogs outside is
kinda cute but I digress...

For those in the Los Angeles area this is the store on San Fernando road in
the city of Glendale, one of the worst stores to visit in my experience,
small, crowded, understocked and understaffed even more than usual.

Anyway, for whatever reason the place was packed, this was at about 3pm on a
weekday, don't these people have jobs....?

I pick up the 2 things I need and head to the cashier...and that's where the
fun started. This store has 14 checkout lanes including 4 of the
"self-serve" ones plus a commercial account desk and an extra register in
the "tool corral", now guess how many of these registers were actually being
staffed?


2...and at least one of the self-service machines was broken with no sign on
it indicating as such. Of course there was the obligatory employee out side
the exit door checking reciepts as people left. Does anyone other than me
refuse to stop for that crap? "If you think I stole something, you better
have some proof and you better go ahead and arrest me cause I ain't stopping
so you can "check my receipt" lady." But I digress.

The lines were at least 12 people deep, so long that guys using the lumber
carts had to leave extra space between them so people could get thru the
store...the tool corral line was in 2 different places and heading for a
showdown as people who thought that they were in line found out that they
weren't.

People were walking up and seeing the space left by the lumber cart guys
they assumed that that meant the line ended there and so they'd try to take
up residence, which made for some interesting confrontations.

While all this was going on, there were 2 cashiers standing a bit down from
the registers trying to entice unwary shoppers to sign up for an inhouse
credit card, when the second one hit me up for an account I said I'd like
one but was afraid I'd never be able to find a cashier to accept it, he
sorta mumbled some thing and wandered off to try and sell an appliance.

After waiting for about 10 minutes in line with virtually no movement I got
on my cel phone, got the manager of the store on the line and asked him why
in the hell wasn't he out front helping to clear some of these customers out
of the store...he babbled a bit about about using the self-serve registers,
that was when I told him that at least one of those wasn't working either...

Well long story slightly shorter, I eventually made it to the cash register
only to find my favorite appliance salesman had actually been told to do
something and he was now working the register, he tried his best to make me
his buddy but all I said was that he should have been helping people a half
hour earlier, paid my bill and left.

The hot dog was very tasty and the can of soda was cold and I didn't have to
wait for the pretty girl to ring me up.

John Emmons

"when hatred calls with his package, refuse delivery..."