I'm Not Sure What the Title Is

Yesterday, somewhere around one in the afternoon, I think, I lost a set of keys to my office and home. I think they went astray at McDonalds.

An aside, I don't much eat at McDonalds; but, I was hungry, there was no one in the office to eat with and I had stuff to do. It's a couple of miles away. I had two double cheese burgers, small fries and a small Coke. Didn't eat but about half the fries. My stomach was distressed for the rest of the day, though that might have something to do with what followed.

I got back to the office and realized that the "valet" attachment between the car key and car remote and the other keys had dis-attached, leaving me with just the remote and the the car key. Back to McDonalds. Nothing turned in. Back to the office and get a key from the Office Manager to duplicate and run home on the off chance that that's where they separated. Nope.

Get spare home key and go to General Hardware in Brookhaven, home of "50,000 Items;" and I believe it. Get extra keys made. Go back to the office. The new key works.

At the end of the day, the new home key doesn't work.

This afternoon I drive back to General Hardware. Everywhere should have a place like this, except for the part I'm going to get to. The aroma, I don't know what it is; but, the only place it exists is in a real hardware store. You look into the store. There's a central aisle with shelves on either side. The ceiling is maybe fourteen feet high with the shelves going to within a foot or so of it. There are signs at the side aisles; but, that is not the way you find things. You find one of the five or six guys that work there, that are the only people in the world that know where each and every one of the 50K items are. And they do.

You show them the broken piece, or the other piece. If you don't have them, you lamely describe what your problem is. They turn away from you and start walking into the labyrinth. You follow. They stop and look at the shelf in front of them and pick up the item you want. Usually what you want is small. They put it in a little manila envelope and put a price on the envelope. Most of the items on the shelves don't have prices; but, you don't mind getting ripped off, even if you are, and I don't think I have been, because most of my bills have been under two bucks.

A few years back, having moved, I was reassembling an antique drafting table that I have. There were little ancient screws that attached the leg/support piece to the table top. I was two short.
Read the previous paragraph again if you don't remember how the process works. Thirty-seven cents, plus tax.

So anyway, I drove over this afternoon. Having been there yesterday, I knew where the key machine was and walked there unassisted. There was a sign that read "Push button ONCE for assistance." I did. Within seconds a man appeared and looked at me.

"Hi. I got some keys made here yesterday. This one doesn't work. The teething is right but I think the blank is too wide because it won't go into the lock."

I held the good key next to the bad key as I said this. After my speech, he took both and examined them. He turned to the wall of keys and rummaged. He chose a blank, put it in the machine with the good key and ground. Then he buffed.

"You bought this here?"

"Yeah, want to see the receipt?" as I pulled it from my shirt pocket. He wasn't looking. He put the bad key and the good key on the counter and put the new key into a little manila envelope. He wrote "N/C" on the outside and handed it to me.

I smiled and said "thanks for your help," as he was turning away from me. Does it help to describe the ambiance to say that he wore bifocals with big lenses, down low on his nose, with a string attached to the earpieces, and looked piercingly over them at me the second or two that he actually looked at me during the encounter? I walked toward the front of the store. I stopped at the counter where the lady that had rung me up yesterday was sitting again, but facing away from me. I cleared my throat and she turned. I showed her my manila envelope with it's N/C. She smiled and said "see you."

I drove the few miles home and tried the key, it worked.

I guess there are all kinds of customer service.