Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.
I can hardly ever say something bad about someone in print that I
don’t eventually feel bad about. Last week, I wrote, “I
should also mention that the folks down at Carter Brothers Hardware on
Virginia Street gave me as much good advice as the employees at Home
Depot gave me bad advice. The Home Depot got the price of the paint. I
won’t make that mistake again.”
OK, at that moment, I was irritated that certain individuals at the
paint counter at Home Depot instructed me not to cut in the corners and
edges with the gray primer but to come close with the roller. The
result was that the edges required three-to-four coats of paint, while
the part I rolled only needed two. And the edges are where mistakes are
compounded with each coat.
But I applied my insult with an unnecessarily wide brush.
There’s another guy at the Home Depot at the paint counter who
goes out of his way every time I see him to give me good, professional
advice, and who goes above and beyond the requirements of the job. Not
everyone at the big box stores suck, and while I can say that I almost
always prefer the waiters at locally owned restaurants to the help in
chain stores like McDonald’s, and I prefer the advice given at
the locally owned computer stores to that from squads at the chain
doodad stores, there are human gems even in the big box chain
stores.
Anyway, I wanted to paint a wall with chalkboard paint, that stuff
that you can draw or write with chalk on and then wipe it off. The
problem was, there were only 12 colors available according to the
manufacturer, Rustoleum. I showed the guy at Home Depot the color I
wanted to the wall to be, and he recalculated the tint amounts to make
me a one-of-a-kind custom chalkboard paint. It looks freaking
beautiful.
So, anyway, sorry for the insult. But don’t forget to
patronize your locally owned stores—they make a larger difference
in our community.