City Guy In The 'Burbs

Episode 1

Back in 1975 I ventured out of the city to attend graduate school in the country. My version of the classic Aesop Fable story. I got an apartment, although it wasn’t like any apartment that I knew. One story. No fire escape. Mail slot in front door instead of mail box in hallway.

Shortly after moving in I wanted to hang a picture in the living room and so I went to the local hardware store. When I walked through the front doors it was like entering Little Shop of Horrors. I was immediately overwhelmed with a hanging display of chain saws, rakes, edgers, hoes, and other instruments that I more naturally equated with slasher films than landscape beautification.

I didn’t want to broadcast my ignorance in such things, so I nonchalantly roamed around the store looking at all the crazy stuff (I never realized there were that many varieties of plungers) while searching for nails. In the aisles men, mostly in plaid shirts and jeans, were picking up various tools and sizing them up. You know, gripping them, weighing them in their hands, making little motions like they were using them, and so forth. I did the same. Meanwhile, there were other men in the back part of the store pulling out innumerable little trays containing nuts, bolts, clamps, and who knows what, and eying them like a Tiffany jeweler looks at precious stones. I observed, careful not to weird anyone out by getting too close. I found where the nails were kept, made my selection, and headed to the counter. Where I immediately gave myself away.

At the counter, the clerk said, “You want to buy one nail?”

“Yes,” I said, “I’m hanging a picture.”

“We sell nails by the pound,” he said.

“You mean like Boar’s Head?” I said.

“What?” he said, not getting my joking reference to my favorite brand of cold cuts.

So I slunk back to the nail section and threw a large handful in a brown bag. I left the store with the nails, a small red toolbox, and a hammer. All three, including the bag of nails, minus a few, are in my basement today.  After all these years in suburbia whenever I have a home maintenance issue my first option is still to call "the man."