Many thanks to all who replied with suggestions.

VERY long day,(yesterday) so very long story short:

Spoke to the gal in the flooring dept at HD, she assured me they do NOT
sell white oak flooring. Sooooooooo, Got the managers name, went up in
person with the unused portion (16 out of 27 bundles) and he not only
agreed, they should never have had a pallet of white oak in the store,
but he gave me credit for all 27 bundles, PLUS a 30% discount on a nice
new Bostitch floor stapler. Took a while to jump through all the hoops,
as they only had 9 bundles of red in stock as opposed to the 94 they
showed on the computer. Had to stop by the other store on the way home
for the balance. Good news: No more money spent 'cept the nail gun,
and Bad news: I have to rip up a 12x15 room full of 2 1/4" flooring. G
But it'll be the way we want it in the end. We've only been working
on this house 6 years as it is. By the time we got headed for the
store, my wife and I had already agreed we'd tear it out even if we had
to buy it again. Live and learn. Read labels, double and triple check
what they bring to the door.

Thanks for all the input.
--
Steve Barker
remove the "not" from my address to email

Steve Barker wrote:
Many thanks to all who replied with suggestions.

VERY long day,(yesterday) so very long story short:

Spoke to the gal in the flooring dept at HD, she assured me they do
NOT sell white oak flooring. Sooooooooo, Got the managers name,
went up in person with the unused portion (16 out of 27 bundles) and
he not only agreed, they should never have had a pallet of white oak
in the store, but he gave me credit for all 27 bundles, PLUS a 30%
discount on a nice new Bostitch floor stapler.

Glad that worked out for ya Steve. Most HD stores will take care of a
customer that way these days. It is weird that they had a pallet of white
oak - and that it rang up as red oak. That mistake in packaging and
applying the UPC to the pallet lies with the lumber mill - not that it makes
your added work any less...

Took a while to jump
through all the hoops, as they only had 9 bundles of red in stock as
opposed to the 94 they showed on the computer.

That'll happen... Really - not very often though - especially since they
went to the new inventory system. Today they should be able to tell you
with alarming accuracy, just what they have in the store, right on their
telephone. Generally when something like that happens, it turns out that
the stock was placed overhead in some other department due to space issues,
and nobody found it... yet...


Had to stop by the
other store on the way home for the balance. Good news: No more
money spent 'cept the nail gun, and Bad news: I have to rip up a
12x15 room full of 2 1/4" flooring. G But it'll be the way we want
it in the end. We've only been working on this house 6 years as it is.
By the time we got headed for the
store, my wife and I had already agreed we'd tear it out even if we
had to buy it again. Live and learn. Read labels, double and triple
check what they bring to the door.


Sometimes ya just go that way. You know what you want, and that's all there
is to it.

--

-Mike-