Indoor Camping: Fixing Up the Fixer-Upper

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Returns

You never know what you need until you walk right by it. We’re at Home Depot because I’m ½ cup short of paint for the entryway. I’ve been avoiding this errand for a week now. There’s a lot you can do if you’re avoiding something else. I never knew I could make such good lentil soup from scratch, for example.

Charlie’s enjoying my lentil soup and hasn’t noticed the part of the wall I haven’t finished painting with “Toasted Grain.” He’s preoccupied with tile since we went ahead and ordered carpet. What’s not being covered in carpet should be covered in tile. Tile comes first. Tiling after the carpet’s installed would be just wrong, even for us.

Charlie came with me to pick up my paint at Home Depot for fun. He’s itching to go home and start on the fireplace mantel downstairs. The mantel is number two of the seven areas he’ll need to cover with tile before the carpet can be installed. While we’re waiting for my paint to be mixed, we end up in the tile aisle, discussing grout color contrast.

“What do you think about getting some different tile?” Charlie says, turning his attention across the aisle. We don’t need tile. We have way too much in the garage already. We tried so hard to be like normal people and plan our remodel. We bought all the tile we thought we needed for this whole house over a year ago.

There’s a beautiful sample of 18” dark brown tile right in front of me. It’d compliment the wall colors and the previously purchased but now boring tile. It’s named Mendocino. I have good memories of Mendocino, California, and I freely admit I make major decisions based solely on what something’s named. Or someone: I always liked the name Charlie.

“I like this one.”

Charlie doesn’t look at the name, but likes it just the same. He begins the process of calculating how much tile he needs for wherever he spontaneously decides to put this tile, if we buy it at all. Noticing his math face, a Home Depot guy walks over to help.

“You can return it if you get too much,” he says.

“In that case, I’ll get an extra box.”

“We take anything back, even a single tile.”

“We have a returns section in our garage,” Charlie says. “We’re well-acquainted with your policy.”

“Don’t return it all at once. Do us a favor.”

“We only return as much as we think we’ll buy. Last time, we ended up paying $17 for $300 worth of supplies, after store credit.”

The Home Depot guy laughs. Hasn’t he ever talked to spontaneous remodelers before? Plans only backfire if you have them. We proved that by planning to tile everything in the light-colored tiles in our garage. Now I suspect they’ll be returning for store credit someday soon.

“I returned a jack I bought when I was jacking up the house about a year ago,” Charlie says. “It amazes me they’ll let you return paint. They’re the Nordstrom’s of DIY.”

“They used to demand a receipt,” I say. “I remember, because I carried about twenty Home Depot receipts around with me at any given time, just in case.”

“When I was returning the paint, I started to explain. ‘Doesn’t matter,’ the returns clerk said. ‘No receipt? No problem. We always take store credit.’”

Isn’t this called enabling?

A little help? [] 6:28:04 PM