I loaded ten pressure-treated 6×6 posts onto a cart at Lowe’s by myself.
If you have never handled one, each post weighs roughly the same as a wet corpse that refuses to cooperate. By number six, my spine was sending goodbye letters to the rest of my body. By number ten, I had met God near the concrete aisle and He also said I should have bought a tractor sooner.
Then a Lowe’s employee appeared.
Not during the lifting. Not while I was pinned between two posts reconsidering every decision since childhood. He appeared after the cart was loaded, looked directly at the pile and said, “I could’ve helped you with that.”
Thank you, guardian angel of completed tasks. Perhaps next you can arrive after my funeral and mention that CPR was available.
Is there a trick to requesting lumber-yard help before the vertebrae begin leaving the body? Do you call ahead? Order online? Wave a contractor card in the air like a distress flare?
Share your Lowe’s survival strategies below. I am not angry at the guy. I admire the timing. Sasquatch has been photographed more often than a lumber associate during an active lift.
The employee’s sentence remains technically true. He could have helped. I could have become an astronaut. Both possibilities expired before the conversation. Customer service exists mainly as a beautiful theory discussed after the spinal damage is complete.
This dispatch appears in What The F(arm): Sixty Dispatches from an Unqualified Ohio Farmer — $25, and the presses roll when 100 people pre-order.