A DeepHo Story

All of you know by now that I have mixed feelings about the Home Depot. I've had bad luck there, and I've had good luck there and I've complained about both.

This is a story about why Home Depot is taking over the world. Sad, but true.

Mike and I went to purchase landing posts for our stairs on Saturday. We were on Cape and decided to check out the selection at MidCape Home Center - figuring that they might have something we liked better than Depot in stock.

The dude in the store told us to go to building #9 out back because that's where the stair stuff was. So, we walked, in the drizzling rain, past 8 other buildings to #9.

Once there, we saw they had just one style of post and it was too short. The guy went back to his stock and, by chance, he happened to have some super long ones. We decided to just get them - I mean, we had already come all the way down here and made the guy check for these for god sakes. We felt bad.

He asked if we wanted oak or beech. Our treads are oak so we said oak. And he gave us the three posts and told us to bring them to the gatehouse. Poor Mike had to carry these three heavy 6ft long posts through the drizzly rain all the way past the 8 buildings to the gatehouse.

At the gatehouse, the attendant told us we had to bring them inside. So we brought them inside to the cashier. She looked at the boxes. Put on her glasses. Looked at the barcode. Asked us where we got them from and what they were. We told her. And then she told us that she didn't know what to do with them and to take them to customer service.

Mike again carried the boxes through the store to customer service. The lady there didn't know what to do with them either. She pointed us over to another customer service guy. Lucky for us, he knew what to do.

He started ringing up the posts and then asked us if we had wanted oak or beech. We said oak and told him that the guy in building #9 said they were oak. They weren't. They were beech. So customer service man called building #9 man to find out if they had any oak. They didn't have any, we'd have to order it.

Mike asked the price difference. It was $79 per post for beech and it would be $90 per post for oak. I thought that was outrageous for either, but having just been through allll that ridiculousness, I told the guy I had to get my project done and I'd take the beech.

And we were finally able to pay and get the hell outta there. Immediately I commented to Mike about how much of a pain that all was and how obvious it became that Home Depot would take over the world at this rate.

We went home, dropped off the posts, and headed to the Depot because we had to rent a hardwood floor stapler.

By chance, I said, "Let's look at their stair stuff."

Oh my god. They had everything. They had a variety of landing posts, banisters, trim pieces, balusters, and more. They had the exact same style as midcape - oak - the right size (actually a variety of sizes) and it was $50 a post. (Actually $49 a post.)

$50 a post! And it was there, I could pick it out myself, I could bring it up front and pay for it easily.

So for the same amount we spent at midcape - we got all three posts, long oak boards, landing post trim pieces, an iron baluster for test length, jig saw blades.... I can't even remember all the stuff we got.

Mike's going to return those other posts tomorrow. Can you believe that? I'm all for supporting the local businesses - and I hate the fact that the whole world is a Home Depot/Walmart/CVS plaza - but OH MY GOD!