If you find that you’re often unsociable, that you really just don’t want to help other people, a good place for you to work would be the Home Depot.

The workers there wear orange aprons so you’d think they’d be easy to spot. Not so. When a customer walks into Home Depot all of the employees scatter, like little bunnies taking cover when a red-tailed hawk flies overhead. They will stock shelves, they will drive forklifts, they’ll sweep aisles and water pansies and load 117 bricks into the back of a Volvo station wagon, but they won’t voluntarily help you find anything in the store.

At all costs, they avoid the customers. To get help, you have to stalk them, lay in wait, set a trap. One time I took a box of donuts into my local Depot. I set them on the floor, hid behind some kitchen cabinets and when they appeared en masse to gorge on maple bars I popped out. No one knew the answer to my question regarding the whereabouts of self-adhesive bathroom towel hooks, still, it was satisfying to prove that the Home Depot employee did in fact exist and that they were chemically attracted to fried dough.

Of course, if you’ve ever encountered the typical Home Depot employee, it’s instantly clear why they constantly dodge customers – they’re socially inept and they don’t know a thing about the place in which they work. Which kinda makes sense, because if they were really bright they’d work across the parking lot at the AM/PM.

Here’s how my last visit went. First, I wandered down most of the thirty-seven aisles before I saw anyone who worked there, and it was a Sunday. The first person I talked to was visibly upset that I had managed to corner him and he had a pained look on his face as if to say, out of all the employees who work here I can’t believe I’m the one who got caught.

I asked him, “Where do you guys keep the wire?”
“What kind of wire?”
“Any kind of wire.”
And he said, “I don’t know, I don’t work in this department. Try hardware.”
I said, “Why did you ask me ‘what kind of wire’ when you don’t know where any kind of wire is?”

I asked a second dude, “Where do you guys keep the wire?”
He said, “What kind of wire?”
It’s like they’ve all been trained to answer a question with a question. It’s a classic stalling tactic used by someone who doesn’t know the answer, like when the student asks the teacher to use the word in a sentence during a spelling bee.

So I say, “What kind of wire, oh, I’m looking for piano wire, the kind of wire a mobster uses to strangle another mobster. Do you know Luca Brasi?”

“Well, I’m not sure sir, but down this aisle, past the big spools of chain I know there’s some wire down there.”

There wasn’t. But it was fun to confuse a Home Depot employee and to talk about piano wire.

I found a third employee, which speaks to my advanced detective skills. I asked him, “Do you guys have wire somewhere?” And I swear, on the name of everything that is holy, he says, “What kind?”

I said, “Do you know where any kind of wire is?” And he says, “Well I might, but if I knew what you were using it for I could maybe send you in the right direction.”

“Oh, okay,” I said. “Well, have you ever been to the circus? You know way up above the big top where the tightrope walkers walk, well, that’s the kind of wire I’m looking for, the kind of wire tightrope walkers walk on.”

As I turned to walk away I heard the genius in the orange apron start to explain that maybe I should try a hobby store for that kind of wire.

♦

I always walk in through the garden center at Home Depot because it’s nice to look at the flowers and it feels like you’re still outside and in the garden center employees aren’t all racing around trying to hide from the customers like they do in the main part of the store. And as I’m exiting through the garden center – without any wire and after becoming significantly dumber as the result of talking to three Home Depot employees – I pass a kiosk next to the cash register. On the kiosk are various spools of wire.

I wanted to commandeer the intercom and announce to all Home Depot shoppers that I had found the wire. But I didn’t. When the super-sharp cash register girl tried to ring-up my two spools of wire, the barcode wouldn’t scan.

She asked, “What kinda wire is this anyway?”

“It’s piano wire, you know, the kind of wire gangsters … nevermind …”

Photo credit: frozenhaddockon Visualhunt / CC BY-NC-SA