Ok, so I've heard you guys complaining about places like Lowe's and Home
Despot. I've never had any problems with them so I thought it was just
mostly snobbery from people who were anti-corporate America. Well, you
may be anti-corporation, but it ain't snobbery. The BORG really is bad.
Here's my story.

Saturday morning I needed to pick up some MDF and hardboard. I have no
truck nor trailer nor available friends with such equipment, nor will an
8x4 fit into my little Honda. I decided to wing it. I went in, paid for
my products, and decided to roll the dice with having the Home Depot
monkeys cut it to size for me, thinking it'd then fit in my Accord. I
approached the only guy I could find in the lumber area. He looked like
he was about 23 and had probably been sneering since he was about 14. I
said, "Hello!" and he just stared at me, as if I may as well have said,
"Eat ferret dung!" I said, "I've got some 8x4's here that won't fit into
my car. Think I could talk somebody into cutting them to size for me?"

The guy continued to look at me. I thought maybe he didn't speak English.
He then spoke - and this is amazing - without ever really opening his
mouth. He said something like, "Mayzel jizgitur truck." I caught one
word there that I was positive was English: truck. So, I said, "Oh, is
there a truck I can rent?" He rolled his eyes and shot me this impatient
glare, like he was trying to explain calculus to a 4 year-old. He said,
"Ya-er-izifu gowda Special Services." Ah HA! "And where is the Special
Services counter?" I asked, trying to maintain good cheer in the face of
having a semi-literate orange-vest hardware jockey talking down to me.
The guy pointed and issued a simean grunt. I politely thanked him and
started heading towards "Special Services." I'm not a class warrior or
anything, and I have much respect for people who are willing to work a job
at Home Depot on the weekends, but I've worked my share of service-sector
jobs and even in the height of my adolescent rebellion, I managed to
usually treat people with a modicum of dignity and courtesy. Maybe I was
raised wrong.

Anyway, beyond having to wait 15 minutes for the truck to be returned by
the last guy (not a big deal) and having another Home Depot employee try
to steathily take it from me, the rest went smoothly.

So you guys aren't kidding! Some of the marginal life forms meandering
the aisles of Home Depot make the skin crawl. The people are Lowe's are
never like that to me. At worst, they pretend to know things they don't
and cheerfully offer helpful "advice" that's so obviously wrong that even
I know enough to nod politely and ignore it.