Conversations in Home Depot
Featuring me, my mother, a toilet seat salesman, and a plague doctor
Once every week for the past three months, my mother and I have had the following conversation.
Mom: Today we need to get two new toilet seats. I don’t want your friends to come here and ask why our toilet seat is yellow. And the other one is broken.
Me: I don’t think they’re going to ask why our toilet seat is yellow.
Mom: I just don’t think it looks nice.
Me: Well, when should we go to Home Depot?
Mom: I’ll have my tea, and then we can leave at four.
At 3:59pm, one of us realises we are tired or sick or in a different municipality, and we reschedule to the following week.
Yesterday, after having done nothing for three days in a row, I finally failed to generate a reasonable excuse to not go to the hardware store. And so, after much grumbling and a drive that was shorter than we thought, my mother and I arrive at the depot of our dreams.
Home Depot is crisp inside, and orange. We are greeted by a tremendously multiracial group of employees.
Mom: Where do you think the toilet seats are?
Me: I think they’re in the bath aisle.
Mom: Yeah, I guess they don't want to write “toilet,” because then customers would think it’s a bathroom.
We walk down an aisle with about 50 different toilets. They are mounted on the shelves like trophies. It looks like a scene from Captain Underpants or an exhibit in MOMA or maybe the future of female urinals. We approach the toilet seat area, where the seats are suspended in a massive grid.
Me: I wonder if they have different colours.
Mom: Let’s ask them.
Me: Oh, you don’t have to.
She turns to a middle-aged man who is puttering around the shelves.
Toilet Seat Salesman: Is there anything I can help you with?
Mom: Do you have different colours of toilet seats?
Toilet Seat Salesman: We mostly have white. Although, we do have a beige colour over here, as you can see... There’s a bigger selection on our online store if you’re interested.
Mom: Thank you! I’d also like to know, why is this toilet seat 76 dollars and the one we picked up over there was only 18? What's the difference?
Toilet Seat Salesman: It’s a difference in quality. Like the plastic on this American Standard model is better because... Well, you know, it’s higher quality.
Mom: We’d really like a toilet seat that won’t break or anything in the future, or get discoloured. What would be your recommendation?
Toilet Seat Salesman: The Kohler is always a classic. It’s plastic, which is better than wood, because the paint will just come right off those wooden ones, in less than ten years!
Me (aside): Can you get microplastics from a toilet seat?
Toilet Seat Salesman: And that Glacier Bay one, you also don't want. It’s much thinner than the others.
At this point, we get out the toilet seat lid that we brought from home for shape matching purposes and disguised (poorly) in a white plastic bag. My mom begins holding it against the other toilet seats to see which one is a fit. I take out the tape measure I have brought with me, and begin measuring different seats. The other customers stare at us, clearly feeling insecure about their own lack of preparation.
Mom: They’re all the same size… You know, I think we’ve spent enough time thinking about toilet seats.
Toilet Seat Salesman: I can see the Kohler is the model you have from home. A great choice.
Mom: Then we’ll just get these Kohler ones, and then we can pick up some doormats and leave.
We pick up the doormats with great efficiency, but on our way back, we notice a collection of tall Halloween-themed figures that people can put in their front yard. There are clowns, witches, ghouls, skeletons, a skeleton dog, and a short green man named Dean the Deathologist.
We pass by Dean and arrive in front of a 7.5-foot-tall animatronic plague doctor. The doctor is speaking to us.
Mom: What is that for? Is it a decoration? Oh, it’s for Halloween already.
Me: What is it saying?
We move closer.
The Plague Doctor: Come closer, and I’ll rip you apart.
Mom: He's saying he’ll rip us apart!
Me: It says there are three different sounds!
The Plague Doctor jerks suddenly, and violently hits the clown to his left, who sways a little from side to side.
Mom: He hit the clown! Wow, I want it. We could put it in our front yard for the whole year.
Me: What about when Halloween is over?
Mom: We could decorate it for Christmas, and all the other holidays. And everyone would come look at it.
Me: I don’t know if our neighbours would like that.
Mom: I like the plague doctor the most. He even has a bag... Such a nice bag… Do you think his bag is included, or do you have to buy it separately? And why does he even have a bag? Does he have stuff to carry? It's not like he’s going anywhere.
Me: I couldn’t tell you.
Mom: I wish I could buy it. I wouldn’t pay 277 dollars for him. I would pay seven. Or even 27. But not 277—that's too much.
Me: Yeah, we got our seven-foot-long papier-mâché fish for free last time.
We decide that the plague doctor would not be a good purchase, so we check our items out and leave the store. We’ve parked one block down. The toilet seats won’t fit in the bags, so we carry two new toilet seats, the toilet lid we brought from home, and three doormats in our arms down the street. We almost drop the toilet seat from home on a husky walking by. I don’t know if I would have even had a spare hand left for the massive weatherproof plague doctor in a floor-length gown.
Mom: Hmm, I like how that Plague Doctor kept saying he’d rip you apart. Maybe 277 dollars isn’t unreasonable... What if you buy it for my birthday?
The people with the husky, who are still within earshot, glance at us a second time. We get to the car, throw the toilet seats rather unceremoniously into the backseat, and begin driving home.
Mom: Where is that license plate from? Is it California?
Me: I can’t really see it from here. Let’s tailgate them for a second?
Mom: We don’t want to run them over.
Me: Oh, it’s Saskatchewan.
Mom: Do they grow weed there? Or hemp? I know Saskatchewan is a large producer of lentils. But I don’t know about marijuana.
Me: The plate says, “land of the living skies.” I like that.
Mom: I like it too.
We drive in silence for a while, our minds clattering with images of plague doctors and living skies. It has been an unusual afternoon.
Me: I’ve been trying to write a blog post about Harvard, but I don’t have very much to say about it.
Mom: About Harvard?
Me: Like, my first year. I wanted to write something before I go back.
Mom: What ideas do you have so far?
Me: That I don’t like it.
Mom: That doesn't sound like a very nice blog. And they might come say, “take your tuition back.” Your 150 followers—or is it 200?—someone will go tell Harvard what you said. And then you’ll be in trouble.
Me: Hmm. Well, maybe I’ll write something about the Home Depot instead.
Love it. "The other customers stare at us, clearly feeling insecure about their own lack of preparation. " What a funny and may the right way to think of others. Keep going.
What a beautiful story! Though, if I were your neighbour, I would very much appreciate seeing a plague doctor in your front yard everyday.