Ace and True Value follow-up

For the record, I don't hate on ALL Ace hardware stores. Just the one in my neighborhood, and not all the time. There is an Ace store in St. Paul that is really great, and there is another in Mishawaka, IN that I love, too. I don't really endorse one over the other. I just don't like the way-too-helpful staff. Leave me alone.

True Value 1, Ace 0

So, I have noticed that there is a trend toward the small, hometown hardware store. I love it, except that some places take this "friendly, helpful" moniker a little too far. There is an Ace hardware about 4 blocks from my house. It is located in this little village and has nice, bright awnings, radio flyer wagons and weber grills in the front windows, along with some American flags, beer coolers, and other charms of americana.

The problem is that as soon as I walk in the door, I know I will be intercepted by the "friendly, helpful" store clerk, who will ask me, "Find what you're looking for?" Well, hell no, because I just walked in the door!!! How the hell am I going to find what I'm looking for in 4 seconds? Seriously, even if I had the store layout committed to memory, I couldn't find what I'm looking for in under 10 seconds. But that's not all. This particular Ace seems to employ the "I know better than you" specialists, who somehow think that they have downloaded all of your mental contents and know everything about your project. One day I went in for a garden hose repair kit.

Here's a recent exchange:
"Hi"
"Hey there"
"Are you SURE you have a 1/2 inch garden hose, instead of a 5/8?"
"Yep"
"Because most garden hoses are 5/8, you know."
"Yep, I think this is the one."
"o.k."

What is that? What kind of approach is this?
"Are you SURE you have a 1/2 inch garden hose, instead of a 5/8?"

Couldn't he have just said something like, "Have everything you need?", or "Yeah, we get a lot of customers who get this 1/2" hose repair kit and then find out they need the more common 5/8." Or something other than the "I know better than you" attitude these guys have.

OOhh, I see Mr. Ace man - YOU know what type of garden hose I have at home, because you're all-knowing, right? You know more than I do about all of the fixtures I have in my home now, because you work at Ace hardware and you have been there for a few years, right? This allows you to know more than your customers about their stuff. O.K. then.

The problem is, of course, that I actually have a 1/2 inch garden hose, not a 5/8". But when I get home, I waste about 2 minutes of my time 2nd-guessing myself, wondering if I do, after all, have the 5/8" hose, and whether I should have grabbed that 5/8 repair kit, just to be safe. well, I got their Ace-brand hose repair kit. The 1/2" was the right size, but it leaked. Great.

After I have a few of the same encounters with these "helpful, friendly" know-it-alls, their schtick gets pretty old. Since they are intent on giving not-really-that-helpful, non-constructive, "I know more than you" attitude, I have dubbed them the Ace-holes.

But the hardware store is beautiful, it's small-town, it has old wood floors, it looks unchanged since the 50s, and it has all this charm. I feel like I should be going there to support the local hardware joint. I feel like a traitor if I go to a big-box retailer. I'm torn.

But there's another solution: I have a True Value store that's less than 4 blocks away, but not part of the village. It doesn't have nice awnings. It is a sheet-metal building, with no display windows, except for the one window on the side that has a hose reel and a bag of bird seed leaned up against it. It has dents, dings, and old glass auto-open doors from the early eighties, with film stuck on them from about a thousand old stickers. It is not charming, it does not evoke fond memories of the Americana of yore. It does not look like like your friendly, local hardware store. But I think I might like that.

But the best part is that when I go in there, I am not bothered by anyone. Nobody helps me. Unless I ask, and then I have to wait awhile, because some guy is in the back, taking his coffee break, or lunch break, or he's f-ing off, which is good. They don't even acknowledge that you're there. That's the America I know. And that's exactly what I want: a hardware store from the 70s. It is exactly like the hardware store I grew up with. A sheet-metal clad, unattractive, non-charming, dirty, fluorescent-lit, concrete-floored structure where there wasn't a clerk in sight and you got what you want, paid, and left.

Because, you see, I want my hardware store to be an extension of my garage or shop: I go in there and I know what I want, and I want to be left the hell alone to get it, or if I don't know what I want, to be given time to figure out what I want, before I throw up my arms and ask for help. I don't want an expert anywhere near me. I want to be left alone to discover my solution.

So I go there, get my true-value 1/2" inch hose repair kit (no questions asked), go home and install it. It works flawlessly.

True Value: 1
Ace-holes: 0