Rockin' at the 'Pot

Whoa, I went to Home Depot (affectionately known around this house as the 'Pot) this morning, after off-loading an ecologically-important deposit (horse shit) at the local composting center. I have my own personal parking space there, thanks to my horse, The Prince of Poop. Anyway, after getting rid of the latest ton of green gold, I decided to pop over to the 'Pot to check on whether those solar floodlights they had been promising for weeks had actually arrived.

Before retiring (I woke up sane one day, you see, and decided enough was enough), I always went to the 'Pot on Saturday or Sunday, when the place resembles Hell on meth with power tools and potting soil. I'm talking crazy to the nth power, there. People coming around corners with really long pieces of lumber or metal impaling other people with a cart full of squiggly light bulbs charged with deadly mercury. People sniffing the bug spray to see how it smells. Unsupervised children running with garden shears. That type of thing.

Today, a Tuesday, the 'Pot contained, I was thrilled to see, about 15 people all older than me, toddling down the aisles and keeping that old economic engine choogling with their cash and cards. There was no screaming. There was no terrifying roar of approaching, outta control carts full of lethal goods or, worse, prickly house plants the size of refrigerators. Or even refrigerators the size of prickly house plants.

Peace and tranquility reigned. I browsed the bug destroyer aisle, since the hoped-for solar floods remained chimerical, and possibly even mythical, seeking the solution for the late-August plague of grasshoppers that descends over our land as if it were Pharoah's Egypt and we were holding some nice Jewish people in slavery. Bug-B-Gone it was!

Unruffled, unimpaled, unterrified and still with hearing intact, I marched to the self-checkout. They wer SO not-busy, the stand-by emergency 'Pot Associate leaped to snatch the B-Gone and scan it for me. This has never happened before on a weekend. Maybe I'm amazed.

Better still: Maybe I'm OLD, and can now wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled! It took 66 years, but I am finally entitled to visit the 'Pot on a weekday. And still remember why I walked in there in the first place. Lord, these be miracles, and I be grateful.