Home Depot and Lowe's....

My two least-favorite stores.... not because of the inventory, but because of the concrete floors and the huge amount of floor-space in both places. And whatever door you walk into, the things that you're looking for are always all the way at the other end. And whatever it is you're looking for, you hardly ever find the right person in the right department who knows the answers to your questions.

But we went to both places anyway, looking for a new refrigerator (we both missed our side-by-side fridge), a new dishwasher (this one is an older model, and too noisy), and a porcelain sink (this one is acrylic, hard to clean, with an acrylic faucet).

The fridge was easy... we found a side-by-side in Lowe's, with the freezer drawer on the bottom. Nice shelves inside, two-layer freezer drawer, with both layers opening when you pull out on the handle. It's a Samsung brand (didn't they just make radios?) and it came in white, which is what we needed. I don't like black appliances, and I hate stainless steel, even though most of the world is in love with them. Besides all of that, our country-kitchen just needs white appliances.

The dishwasher...... we tried to get the top-of-the-line GE, which is what we had in the other house. Neither Lowe's nor Home Depot had it. Lowe's did have the top-of-the-line Frigidaire, which is the most quiet dishwasher on the market. It had the china/crystal setting, which I was looking for, and it also had the no-heat/air-dry setting, which is what I wanted-- I've never let a dishwasher dry the dishes-- takes too long, takes too much energy... just open the door after the wash cycle quits and your dishes are dry in three minutes.

The dishwasher will be here within a week or so, but the fridge was delivered this morning. The two guys who brought it had to take off the doors of the fridge, take off the kitchen door, and take off the metal trim around the door-- just to get the new fridge into the house. (They didn't have such huge refrigerators when this hundred-year-old house was built.) The guys had a lot of patience, they didn't seem to mind the extra work, and they just used a power-screwdriver to unscrew everything off and then put everything back on.

The kitchen sink and faucet isn't so easy to get. I don't want a stainless steel sink (reminds me of industrial sinks) and I don't want acrylic (too hard to keep clean-- really clean). I want real porcelain, in white. Give me a blessed break.... neither Lowe's nor Home Depot had them, and the sales people there thought I was out of my mind. My husband found porcelain sinks on the Internet, so we'll have to order it that way, then we'll have to go back to Lowe's and/or Home Depot and look for a faucet. I would like to get the polished brass faucet that I had in the other house, but the Style Police have decided that silver faucets are "in" this season, and those make up three-quarters of the selection at both Lowe's and Home Depot.

Did they take down the American flag flying over this country? Don't we still have the right to choose exactly what we want? Why do I have to settle for stainless steel or silver or nickel or whatever they want to call it when I'd like polished brass?

What I really want are all the workmen that are on Oprah's show when Nate is doing home make-overs. Come to think of it, Nate's army of handymen are supposedly from Home Depot or Lowe's, aren't they? They jump out of the truck (which is perfectly clean), they all march into the house (the men are perfectly shaven, all in white shirts and clean slacks and shoes) and they all begin working, and within a couple of days (sometimes even less) they march out and all the work is done, everything is painted and/or installed, furniture and appliances are set into place, everything works the way it's supposed to work, both Oprah and her audience are ooohing and aaahing, and then Nate goes on to the next home make-over.

In a perfect world, there would be a Nate at every Home Depot and Lowe's store. You would walk in, tell Nate exactly what you need, he calls one or two or a dozen of his clean-shaven handymen, they follow you home in their clean tool-filled truck, and they do what has to be done.

When they leave, you are ooohing and aaahing. As I said-- in a perfect world. Which does not exist, unless you're Oprah. But I'm sure she's had her pre-Nate moments, too.