Road Trippin'

I came very close to slugging an overzealous Lowe's employee this past weekend while visiting my parents in Connecticut.

Let me back up. As I mentioned on Thursday's post, I am on a mission to create a Garden of Destiny (GOD) in front of our house. A space just teeming with flowers, especially marigolds. And hydrangeas. And some interesting prairie style grass. And some ground cover that gives off the faint whiff of thyme when you step on it. It is my obsession.

I have no idea how to accomplish any of this. However, as Mark Twain would have it: "All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure."

That quote pretty much sums up all of my home improvement endeavours to date. And in this case, I figure I have enough ignorance to cover three projects, which means that this will triply successful. Right? Moving on...

What a time, then, to visit my parents. This pair of Connecticut Yankees know two things above all others:

1. How to make their children feel loved
2. Curb Appeal
   

So, I brought up my grand design for "Marigold Landing" (working title for the GOD), and they mentioned that plants, especially new plantings, need to be watered every day to ensure survival. I glanced over quickly at the Velogirl as my parents spoke to see if she understood what was being said, and she was most definitely nodding in knowing agreement. Huh.

(My garden brain trust on the banks of the mighty Connecticut River)

Step one was now clear. I needed to buy a remote shutoff for the hose in our front yard, so that I would not have to crawl under the porch each time I want to turn water on and off. It's dirty under there. Plus, there's a 100 percent chance I would eventually need a tetanus shot after putting my hand through an old nail. Yeah, I know...gross, right? That's why I needed the cutoff valve.

So, off to Lowe's we went, the brain trust as my escorts. Once we were all standing there in the middle of the hose and hose accessory aisle (which is larger than you would think--who needs this many hose options? This should all be standardized--different hose WIDTHS? really?), I quickly realized I was in over my head. In walks the helpful Lowe's saleslady I would so nearly take out a restraining order on mere minutes later. I tell her about my quest and my first challenge.

"You don't want that", she says, referring to the valve cut-off I was holding. "Huh?" says I, and as I was uttering this syllable, just like that, she takes the valve out of my hand and throws it back into the pile from which it came.

After five minutes of trying to explain to me why this was in fact, not the course to pursue, this young lady handed the Velogirl a brand new hose with a BUILT-IN cutoff valve. So, instead of a cutoff valve that I could attach to my current hose, I, in fact, needed a new hose with the valve already inside.

I may not know gardening, but I know when I've been looking at two things that do EXACTLY THE SAME FUCKING THING. So, I says to the hose salesperson: "Isn't this the same exact thing as the valve?" What's the difference?" Her answer, which she would repeat to me 11 times, was this:

"No, No No. This hose saves money on water because it has a valve." First of all, lady, a valve is a valve, it seems to me. If one saves me money on water, there's a pretty good bet that an identical valve would do the same thing.

So, I spent the next 6 minutes thanking her for the assistance, just waiting for her to go around the corner, so I could purchase the cheaper option. But she would not leave. Nope. Not until I put the hose in the cart. By this point, the garden brain trust and m'self had spent 15 minutes in the least exciting aisle in Lowe's. So, long story short, I was totally brow-beaten into buying, it must be said, a pretty nifty hose.(The newest jewel in my hose collection. If you look closely at the package you can see that it is proudly made with a space-age polymer called "Heavy Duty Flexogen". You know, because "Medium Gauge Flexogen" would probably buckle under the stress of watering the 8'x8' plot of land I use it for.)

Oh, did I mention the saleslady was deaf? Yeah, she was. I think that's why my subtle inflections in phrasing and tone went unnoticed. Like when I said, "Thank you SO much for all your WONDERFUL fucking assistance", for example. Instead of being offended, she took it as a compliment from someone with turret's syndrome. Talk about meeting me more than halfway.