A Shout-out to Village Hardware

This place is about a mile from my house. Yesterday I went there three times in the course of spending five hours under my kitchen sink, clearing a badly clogged drain. The clog was beyond the trap (the U-shaped pipe under the sink), and I had to remove the trap to get to the clog with a snake. I had trouble every step of the way. On my first trip to VH I bought Liquid Plumber and a 15-foot snake. On the second trip I didn't buy anything, I just stared at and played around with some of the plumbing parts until I figured out how they went together. I went back a third time when I had to buy a new trap because I couldn't get the old one back on correctly. I took the old trap with me to show them what I needed, and one of the guys said the threads had been damaged by someone over-tightening the joint. (That would be my late husband, whose approach to every such task was to get angry, shout curses, and apply greater and greater force until parts either worked in some fashion or broke, requiring a call to a repairman.)

I've been going to Village Hardware for as long as I've lived in my house: almost 15 years. The same bunch of guys has been working there the whole time. Every time I walk in the store, within a minute or two someone asks if I need help. The answer is almost always yes. There's no limit to the amount of time they'll spend helping me search for just the right screw, resulting in a purchase of less than a dollar. They'll tell me what I need, how it works, and what tool would make the job easiest. I once got there after they'd closed. Hoping they were still open I tried the door, but it was locked. I could see a couple of the guys sitting inside, drinking beer, but I didn't expect anyone to get up. I started to turn away when one of the guys came to the door and let me in. He helped me find what I needed and rang up the sale.

I go there looking like something the cat dragged in. There's no other store I've gone to looking or smelling as sweaty and filthy as I looked, and no doubt smelled, by 4pm yesterday. I mean, I'm not going to take a shower, wash my hair, and change my clothes so I can buy a new trap so I can get back under the kitchen sink and get covered with crud all over again.

I love Village Hardware. I even love standing in line to pay because of the cool stuff they have for sale right by the cash register. As I was standing at the checkout counter for the third time yesterday, I said to the guy working the register "This is my third time here today; that must be a record." He said "The over-under for plumbing is three trips," which made me smile.