We're Not Building Anything Together

You know how you have a vision in your mind of what something will be like, and then the vision takes on the reality and it’s just how you imagined?! 

No?

Yeah, me neither. What goes on in my head versus what the reality of the situation actually is would make some people question my intelligence. Like, why is that girl always so terribly wrong? 

We just ordered new screen sliders for our patio doors. Ours have a few snags in the screens and I’m sick of handing all the bugs a freaking red carpet invitation every night. I want to open the patio doors in my own home, is that too much to ask? 

The short answer is yes, since the universe seems to be conspiring against said sliders. First of all, they are not inexpensive. It’s a freaking piece of screen in a case with some wheels at the bottom, I thought they’d be like, twenty bucks. Thirty, max, since the big box stores love a good markup. The cheapest ones we found were sixty, and you can’t have just one screen slider, so now we’re out over $120. When Lowe's tried to ask for even more of my money by offering delivery, I was savvy to their tricks and said, no way, I’ll pick up my own screens.

Last night Brent and I were fighting and in the aftermath I was all independent woman mode, so I decided to go pick up the screens. Brent asked me where I was going and I told him Lowe's and he said by yourself? And I said, yeah by myself, and he’s like do you want me to come with you and I was like oh Thank God, I could never manage a trip to Lowe's by myself, the exterior alone gives me chronic homeowners headache. 

We get to Lowe's and go in the wrong entrance. In the vestibule, there’s the main entrance, or there’s this little side entrance, which we zipped right by and then we’re in the store looking for online pickups, and are pointed back in the direction we came from. Instead of being able to get to it, we have to go outside and come in again from that sneaky side entrance. Please tell me you’ve been there before, or at least know what I’m talking about? Like going to Lowe's isn’t already enough of a pain, they have to pull some shit like this. 

We pick up our screen sliders and there’s some extra material that Brent wants to get cut off, since he figures it’ll be better to have an “expert” do it. The expert is a college kid home on summer break who saws at it w/ a box cutter until we intervene like, okay, that’s good, please stop mauling our screen now. 

Brent’s carrying out our new screens and it only just occurs to me as we cross the parking lot that we might not have a big enough car for this. We pushed the seats down and emptied the trunk and we slide the screens in and it’s laughable how wrong we were; those screens are hanging out by like a foot. Brent slides the passenger seat all the way up and bends it forward as far as it will go and we manage to get the screens almost in.

Like Brandy said, almost doesn’t count. The trunk is wide open and we decide the best option is for Brent to sit in the backseat without a seatbelt (b/c it won’t go across the folded down seat) and hold the screens from blowing out of the wide open trunk. It was nice knowing you, B. That’s what I’m thinking the entire drive to the pizza place, b/c of course we had to pick up dinner. We had a coupon code that was expiring and called the order in to be ready for pickup when we were leaving Lowe's. We get to Papa Gino’s and they have no confirmation of our order. I’m definitely scowling instead of smiling by this point and the cashier polity asks me if I ordered it to the other Papa Gino’s in town.

On the ride home, sans pizza, we wise up and decide to have Brent drive and me squeeze into the passenger seat that’s pushed up as far as it can go, which isn’t really that different from how far up the driver’s seat is when I’m driving. I pretend to hold the screen for the ride home, but I’m not fooling Brent, who asks me over and over to PLEASE HOLD THE SCREENS and then just does it himself. 

Only suckers pay delivery fees. 

I know this post makes it seem like I’ve got it in for Lowe's, but I’m an equal opportunity hater to all the home improvement stores that are constantly making me re-live versions of this story.