I used to enjoy the shopping process. Just like there’s no good substitute for in-person classroom teaching, there isn’t a good replacement for walking in to a well-stocked store with knowledgeable salespeople. (It’s the same for trying to do any real computer work on your own real computer, instead of a fucking phone with its head up the cloud’s ass, and no mouse or usable keyboard.)

But brick and mortar retail is a dying art. Today at the Home Depot, it was nearly impossible to find an employee, and whenever I did, they knew nothing and had no idea how to remedy that lack of knowledge.

Dear HoDepo. You’re driving me into the filthy embrace of Jeff Bezos. The details are too dull to reiterate, but you suck, dependably and repeatedly. Get more old mechanic kind of guys and pay them enough to retain them even under rolling pandemic conditions, or lose me forever. I’ve had enough of your nice but clueless high school kids and your grunting middle-aged metal shop rejects.

Even though Lowe’s is far more out of the way, I’ll give them a hard try next time, before I’m forced by circumstance to just give up and join the 21st century, at least when it comes to these kinds of purchases. A real canvas tarp for godssake, how hard it that?

Of course I don’t see buying lumber online, so maybe I’ll still be worth a fraction of what I was to you anyway.

I’m sure I sound antediluvian. I’m okay with that. For one day at least.