Hardware stores...

I love hardware stores. They are so practical. Useful things down every aisle. I cannot resist. I usually  buy something to make Life easier around the Home & Garden. Then, I discover that I already have a Life-time Supply of the same size masking-tape. Anyway, My Love for Hardware is probably why I bought the darn House & Garden in Codiponte in the first place. I am always in a hardware store.

This morning, The Dog & I drove to the little town of Gragnola a couple of miles away. It has important stores like a super-market, a dry cleaners, a pharmacy and two hardware stores!!! 

One is the local consorzio agricola, an establishment serving farmers, gardeners & home potterers.  There is a section for housewares. I never go on that side of the store. One Alessio is like any other Alessio. There, at the Consorzio, I picked up four 100 lb. bags of quality potting-soil... I am still laboring on planting those abandoned Larus bushes but, I am almost finished... a high-powered flash light... so, I can see the cut-wood in the cow stall in the dark-of-night... and a pair of heavy-duty reinforced-steel-toe boots with a handy-dandy zipper rather than fooling with lacing them up & down... so, if I accidentally drop a stone on my foot, it won't get crushed, as I am building a stone wall around three of the Larus on the upper terrace. This store is a family concern... Dad, Mom & Son. The Mom is a minimally verbal ding-bat, if that is possible. She never says Buon Giorno but, she always says Arrivederci!!! The Dad & Son always argue with each other. This would be fine, if I weren't in the middle of their litigi. In between discussions, the two attempt to expand their English with me, such as, Hauw rrr yew tewdayeee? Weee rrr haveeeng beeeauuuteeefuuul wther, no? Said, as if there might be some doubt. I have to catch myself though not to mimic their adorable accents. Cartoon characters.

Then, off we drove to the other hardware store. It is a family concern yet, with employees too. The family is the Son & Mom. The Mom deals with the cash-register. I don't know what the Son does though he is very friendly. Oh, I know! He delegates to the employees!!! There. Everyone has a job!!! This hardware store caters mostly to the construction trade. There is a Housewares Department. I do brouse through it. However, everything is in plastic and in either BLUE or RED!!! Well, my kitchen-stuff is WHITE!!! Besides bricks, tubes, cement, etc. the store also seeks to satisfy any desire for investing in medium-sized equipment... weed-wackers, gas-powered chain saws, lawn-mowers & son on & so forth. I bought a lawn mover last summer. It would always start right up at the store but, as soon as I got home, NIENTE!!! Back to the store with the recalcitrant mower. This back 'n forth went on until, fed-up & frustrated... that may not be the proper order... I finally asked for a refund. O! Weee'll feex eeet! Apparently, eeet eees feex-ed neow!!! I made an appointment to pick the mower up tomorrow. I will insist on a test-drive. I really wanted to find a thingy-ma-jigger for pulling off rubber boots. A part from not knowing its term in Italian... much less in English... they didn't have one... in the Housewares Department. Va' beh...

So, our business concluded, The Dog & I headed for Home & Garden, the car full of hardware-stuff, equipped to start our work. Gads.