CLAMPS!

I had to go to Home Depot to get a few things. Mainly to bumble about with and make a total mess under the guise of 'home improvement'. The only thing it improves, frankly, is my already impressive ability to swear while holding what I think is a philips head screwdriver. Could be a hammer, actually.

I'm no handyman, is my point. I'm pretty good at putting on a grin and 'bearing through something until it's sort of done but nothing you'd ever show to polite company', though. Which is how I get into these situations, wandering through cavernous home improvement SUPER STORES looking for a flange or a shivel or god knows what other word they've devise for, say, a rubber washer.

So I was there at Home Depot, with Owlet and The Dog. I went with them because having them around greatly reduces the chance that anyone will mistake me for a handyman and ask me for an opinion vis-a-vis the best method to route out a double iron casting tackle block; also because apparently two year-olds can't take care of themselves if left to their own devices ('very fast, very strong, and very stupid' was an apt description I heard of them once, not a lie).

So, with kids in tow I go asking various people in orange aprons where I can find a clamp. This is a terrible word for a nerd to have to say in public, because only one thing comes to mind, and that one thing repeats AD NAUSEUM.

"Hi, do you know where the clamps are?"
CLAMPS! CLAMPS! MY NAME is CLAMPS! You want me to CLAMP him boss!? Why I oughta clamp YOU!
"Clamps?'
CAN I CLAMP HIM boss?! CAN I? Clamps! CLAMPS!
"just down aisle 18, about a third of the way down on your left."
"Uh, thanks."