More Joys of Homeownership or...

...how EVERYTHING turns into a trip to Home Depot.

So around lunchtime, I had the munchies, and went searching for the dried edamame from Trader Joe's (seriously good and crunchy). When I opened the cupboard in the Kitchen-That-Saddam-Built, I noticed that it was wobbly. I realized that the hinge was loose. So I got out the stepladder and the Phillips screwdriver, and tightened the hinge.

Sounds like simple fix, no? But of course, once I had the stepladder and the screwdriver out, I decided to check out the burned out fluoresecent bulb from the ones mounted behind the soffit in my living room. (Cheap-ass mood lighting, courtesy of the former owner). So I finally get the cover off, and take out the burned out bulb. At the same time the fixture comes off of the wall. I manage to reattach the fixture to the wall, and head off to my nice and friendly local hardware store.

Now Cherrydale Hardware is exactly what a hardware store should be -- a dark place with lots of little pokey bins full of....things. I am not handy by inclination (I can do it when I have to), but I like these little places and never mind going there for a project. It's my second favorite hardware store on the planet -- the first being its English counterpart in Henley-on-Thames. They had odd gardening implements hanging on the upper parts of the walls, and some of them had to have been there for fifty years. They also had bins full of various size nails and screws, which they would give you in a plain brown paper sack. I bought more stuff in Henley that I had no real need for, but it was neat.

Once in the hardware store, the nice older man who runs the place comes right up, asks me what I need, so I hand him the bulb. He walks over to the area with the bulbs, looks around doesn't see one that size, goes over to the other bin -- still nothing. He then walks over to the book where they have all of the things they can order, spends about ten minutes measuring and explaining things, but then shakes his head sadly and says that this particular kind of bulb simply isn't in the catalogue. This is quite sad, not least of which because now it means.... a trip to the Home Despot.

After driving over to the Big Orange, I head over to the fluorescent bulb section. Despite its huge size, they really don't have any more selection than Cherrydale Hardware, and it's a mess. I also don't see any bulbs in the odd width and length that I've got. So I go over to the man in the orange coverall to see if there are more bulbs, as I had found one bulb in the right width but the wrong length thrown on one of the surfaces. Oh yeah, and I put on my magic cloak of female invisibility, because after going over to him and waiting for him to finish his phone call, the guy looks right at me and then walks past me. Three other guys in orange aprons also blow me off. After being tempted to stick the burned out bulb in a place that doesn't normally shine, I head back over the the bulb section for one last look. Hanging from one of the racks was a bunch of these proprietary bulbs -- it turns out these fixtures are made only for Home Depot, so you have to go there to get these odd bulbs. So I pick up three of them -- good for 24,000 hours of light, allegedly. Mission finally accomplished.

The lesson? Let the cupboard door stay jiggly. It will save you lots of grief in the end.