Two-by-Fours, Snickers Bars, and Furnaces

After a morning of drawing up plans and calculating lengths of lumber, Craig and I went to Home Depot today to get the wood to build the compost bins. We don't really consider ourselves fully moved in to a place until we get the compost bins built and the garden established, so these outdoor projects have now moved to the top of our old-house to-do list.

We walked into Home Depot with our list of so many two-by-fours and one-by-sixes and nails and other hardware. We  decided on horizontal planks for the sides rather than chicken wire, which is getting kind of fancy for us. We also decided not to splurge on cedar, which would be a little too fancy—and, besides, we figured that in the five or more years it takes for the cheaper wood to begin rotting, we may want to modify the design anyway.

After passing the helpful woman who directed us to the lumber department, we were greeted by a cheerful fellow with a clipboard, who said, "May I interest you in a furnace and air conditioner today?" We declined, and as we made our way to the shelves of two-by-fours, Craig mused, "Furnace, air conditioner, Snickers bar—all things you might buy on impulse, right?"

Then I smelled popcorn and started looking around for the source. "I must have popcorn," I said. And there she was, a smiling matronly woman standing next to a popcorn machine. "We give away popcorn every Saturday," she said. "And ask people if they'd like to sign up for a free estimate for any of these things—a furnace or air conditioner, perhaps? Patio or sidewalk?" I thanked her for the  popcorn but declined to sign up for the estimates.

We found the materials we needed, with assistance from a few more helpful orange-aproned people, all of whom seemed quite happy to have a job—and who isn't these days?—and made our way to the checkout. There I spied the candy bars and placed a Snickers on top of the two-by-fours to complete our purchase.

Despite the nice young man who cut the wood for us so we wouldn't have any boards longer than six feet, we found that we still had to allow them to protrude out the back of our Honda Fit, and so fetched a length of twine (of course they had precut pieces of twine available for just such a purpose) to hold the hatchback door down. Under the circumstances, we agreed that it would not be a good idea to take our lumber-laden little car on the freeway, which meant that we had to take the long way home.

"That's OK," I said. "We have a Snickers bar."

—SP