This is a sponsored post, one in a series, I have written on behalf of The Home Depot. Big love to them for wanting to work with me and OWTK, and for helping me get my yard in order for the 2013 outdoor season.
When forced to make a decision between helping myself and seeking out assistance from another, either in the flesh or on the phone, I will always go it alone. An independent loner through and through. In my experience, and this unfortunately includes prior trips to The Home Depot, I’m too often sorely disappointed with the level of service and help I receive. I could legitimately slap air quotes around both of those words. Whether it’s cashiers talking amongst themselves while ringing up my items agonizingly slowly to apathetic employees taking out their frustrations on where they’ve ended up in life on me when I’ll I want to know is which one of the 853 varieties of light bulbs currently in stock and on the shelf will fit into my ceiling fan sconces, it all really bums me out. The advent of the internet itself has been big deal for me, because I get to flex my seek and find muscle to obtain the information and products I need, and do so in or out of pants.
And so the internet is where I turned this week to do my shopping for new gardening tools. Right from the start, I could tell I’d dig the Home Depot’s web presence. The “What Can I Help You Find” search bar text on HomeDepot.com is so very warm, reassuring, and welcoming, especially for a guy who often doesn’t know how to find what I want when inside a Home Depot. I’m hopelessly confused in there, I mean those places are cavernous and a bit overwhelming for this green-thumb novice! I searched for and researched both the string trimmer of my dreams (fingers crossed) and a garden hose, products I mentioned in my previous post, before leaving the house for the store to pick them up. I read a lot of costumer reviews too, which can always be a bit dicey, because you have to ascertain who among them is just grinding an axe and who is there to be thoughtful and honest and helpful to their fellow consumers. I tried my bestest to gauge which products would meet my budget, dependability, and aesthetic demands. While there (digitally) I also looked into a whiskey barrel for planting and possibly for use as a rain barrel in the front of our house, to reduce our dependence on municipal water as we feed our potted plants in the soon-to-be-redesigned front yard.
The only apathy I deal with online is my own, but there is another issue with online shopping too, even on a site as well designed as the Home Depot’s — the feel test. This is especially crucial for a hose. I don’t want a stiff-as-a-board one, even with its promise not to kink. I need to touch and see my hosal (not a real word) options. I also want to look at a few smaller items in person, like a rubberized garden border that may help keep weeds down around the perimeter of the beds and beneath the fence. And I’m sure the wifey will have some additional wishes on her personal list for my Home Depot shopping spree.
So here comes the bad news, but also the part where my narrative explodes like 4th of July fireworks: I couldn’t complete my string trimmer order online (I got a message that the type of payment — an eGift Card provided by The Home Depot — wasn’t able to be used at this time. I chatted online with a rep for some help and she recommended I try again later, that there might be a site issue. I did that, only to bump against the same wall), thus forcing me into the store to seek assistance and to ask questions.
At the store, I did better, WAY better proving that sometimes a 180 degree reversal of trends is more than okay. I was able to locate the string trimmer all by myself (Mom would be so proud!) right away, and it was there that I met Charles Kloss, or as I like to call him, the most helpful person in the history of helpful people. He walked me around the entire store answering great questions I am too stupid to even know to ask, and breaking it all down for me with honesty, integrity, and a frank sense of humor that I can totally appreciate. I nearly gave him a hug when it was time to check out. There was awkwardness in saying farewell, um, at least on my end. I wished I could put him in my pocket and take him home with me. We spoke about rubber edging for my gardens, landscape fabric, the perfect hose nozzle for light watering of potted flowers, the value of doing the stone garden as a raised bed and grading it down to meet the grass, and more. He also drew diagrams of how to lay down sod, how to prepare the ground before I lay down sod, and recommended the proper fertilizer hydrogen ratios to serve as the bed for the sod. He also said that sod is the way to go to repair the smallish patch in the front yard instead of worrying about and managing grass seed. He then walked me out of the store into the parking lot to show me the sod, and explain more about what I would do with it, care for it, and help it live long and prosper. He was my personal shopper for about an hour and I kinda love him.
I bought the Ryobi string trimmer, a coil hose, all-purpose gloves for myself, a spray nozzle for the hose, commercial grade landscape fabric, staples for that fabric, and rubberized Ecoborder edging to test out on a small garden bed in the front (either around the mailbox or a bush by the walkway), but more importantly I came away energized and excited to get started. Spending that hour with Charles in the store this morning breathed life into my gardening projects and my desire to attack them this weekend.
Sometimes it is good to close the laptop, tuck away the iPhone, and talk to someone…while wearing pants.
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This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of The Home Depot.
