Hardware stores. Closed. On Sunday afternoons.

What is this madness? And is it any wonder the economy is in a downturn with decisions like this in retail management? Has the pasttime of puttering about the estate on various honey-do projects on a Sunday afternoon disappeared?

So I'm trying to keep the jungle at bay (it rained a few times this week, and the lawn soared to outrageous heights), and I pull out the lawn mower. Start it up, and it runs for about 4 seconds then dies. Futz with the spark plug wire. Try again. Same results. Futz with the throttle cable. Same result.

The mower had taken an unexpected bath last week, when I didn't get it put back in the shed, and a rain shower cleaned it off. So I decide to check the air filter. It is swollen with clippings, mud, and distended wet cardboard from the filter's own guts. Remove air filter, start mower, runs like it should. Problem isolated.

Now to go grab a new one, and get on with the task.

Bzzzzt! Wrong-o, Mary Lou.

I drive past the locally owned hardware few blocks from my house. Closed. I go up the road further to the locally owned lumber/houseware store (think home depot without the steroids and the inflated prices for insane marketing efforts). Closed. So I swing out to the other end of town, to a corporate home store. The unfriendly clerk guides me to where the filters should be, but the box that should hold the filters isn't even on the shelf -- nice stock management, kids. I also see why the guy is unfriendly, since he's accosted by three jerks while trying to answer my question about expected date of new filter stock -- free hint to the clueless management at that chain: hire more people for the weekends, and try to have your stock on the shelves then, too. You'd see an amazing jump in sales, I'd bet...

So the next stop is to the al-MartWay, and there the filters are on the shelf in the Garden Center. I grab one, and go stand in line with the various representatives of evolutionary deadends and parental "I warned you about them" examples, and I'm finally outta there. I get the filter installed a friggin' hour and a half after isolating the problem, and can finally mow the lawn.

5:26:21 PM  [] blah blah blah'd on this    

Stuart's Law of Retroaction. "It is easier to get forgiveness than permission."

1:10:36 PM  [] blah blah blah'd on this    [ blinked via Motivational Quotes of the Day ]