It's a Home Depot Kind of Day

     We are now in our third week of the bathroom renovation and are approaching grouting of the tile.  To this end, Cash, the contractor, told me today to buy two boxes of non-sand grout.  "Me?"  I asked.  He said that no way, no how, was he going to pick the color.
      Wow.  Spoken like a man who has post traumatic stress disorder from having once picked a bad grout. 
      So I trundled myself off to my local Home Depot where I met Mike, the helpful floor guy.  We looked at grout samples next to my marble sample and decided that only nutmeg colored grout would do.
      Horrors.  There was only one box of non-sand nutmeg left, and I required two.
      Not knowing how quickly the grout was needed, I cried out, (literally, I cried out so loudly that another Home Depot guy came over to assist) "I'm desperate."
     "Nope.  Only the one box."
      "Can you put a rush on it?"
      "We don't rush anything at Home Depot."
      That really begged for a snappy retort, but instead of spending my time thinking of one I asked if he could call a nearby Home Depot to see if they had the grout.
      Eureka.
      So I fired up the red Mercedes and headed over to the Port Chester Home Depot where they had plenty of the stuff.
     I arrived home to find that Cash, the contractor, had forgotton to mention that I needed to buy sanded grout for the shower floor. 
      I figured this was retribution for Edward having forgotton to buy Debit's coffee this morning.
      Debit, the guy who does all the real work, was really very nice about it, even after I suggested that he must have pissed off Edward to get this kind of treatment.  But I actually fixed the problem by calling Edward at a meeting and getting him to leave the meeting so that I could scold him by phone and tell him to damn well get the coffee on his way home.  Debit must remain in an agreeable frame of mind.
      So after Cash's pronouncement about the need for more grout, the Mercedes and I headed back to the first Home Depot, and while I was driving, I got to thinking of a sweet story about Phil in the paint department.  One day, I wanted to get a can of spray paint which is kept locked up to avoid kids using it for graffitti purposes.  One is supposed to show proof that they are over 18 in order to buy it.  For obvious reasons, (just stop laughing, now) no one has ever asked for my i.d.  This day, an earnest, serious, young man helped me select my spray paint, and as a joke I said, "Don't you want to see my i.d.?"  He looked me straight in the eyes and said absolutely seriously, "Boy, I would love to see your i.d."
        I paused and then said something really witty. 
        Well, actually, I said something ungrammatical that made no sense whatsoever but I wanted to say something witty.
        He then said, "I'm Phil, and I'd like to help you with anything.  Please call me.  I'm Phil.  Phil in paint."
        Maybe, constant trips to Home Depot aren't so bad.