Lost in Suburbia: The sad, sorry tale of the depot man

By Tracy Beckerman

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“I’ll be right back,” said my husband as he headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” I demanded. We were in the middle of moving back into our house after a house renovation, having the floors refinished and the walls painted. Moving our stuff back in was a massive job and I was counting on my husband to do all the heavy lifting while I sat on the couch and pointed.

“I need a few things at the hardware store,” he replied.

I groaned. “I need a few things at the hardware store” and “I’ll be right back” and were two sentences that could not realistically be put together. When my husband went to the hardware store, he did not come right back. If he came back the same day, I considered it a successful outing. More often than not I would have to wait the requisite twenty-four hours and then file a missing persons report. It was easy to describe him — he’d be the one in a coma in front of the shiny power tools.

Surprisingly, no matter how long he spent at the hardware store, the second he got home he would decide he had the wrong part and have to go back. I couldn’t imagine how he could spend four hours in the hardware store and come home with the wrong part unless he was rendered temporarily dumbstruck by the site of a mega pack of 128 rechargeable batteries. The more likely answer was that he purposely bought the wrong part so he would have an excuse to go back and spend more time ogling tools. Some guys had a mistress. I suspected my husband was having an affair with a leaf blower.

Now most of the time I was OK to let him go have his fun. But since I knew we had a lot of work to do, I was hesitant to let him out the door. Once he got enticed back into the store, there was no telling what unnecessary purchase he might be seduced into making. It didn’t take much for a salesperson to convince my husband that he had the skills to own and operate some piece of heavy. And then before you could say “zero percent financing,” we’d have a brand spanking new backhoe and a hole in the house where the garage used to be.

“Tell you what,” I said. “How about if we finish getting this stuff back in the house first, and then you can go to the hardware store.”

“Sorry, Honey, but I really need to go now before they close.”

I sighed. I really could not understand his obsession. It baffled me. I was at a loss to understand the power it had over him. But mostly, I was relieved that there was nothing like that in my life that made me go gaga with longing and want to purchase things I didn’t need.

“OK, fine,” I relented. “But as long as you’re going to be out, I going to run out for a bit, too.”

“Where are you going?” he wondered.

I grabbed my bag. “I need a few things at the shoe store.”

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