Coming Clean: Confessions Of A Hardware Store Sell-Out

Yesterday I realised I've subconsciously sold out my neighbourhood hardware stores. I've fallen victim to absent minded consumer negligence.

I realised I'd lulled myself into some sort of automatic routine of driving out of my hood to the closest Home Depot whenever I needed something.

Meanwhile there are plenty of mom & pop hardware stores which remain in my own neighbourhood!

I felt awful, for real.

Yesterday I had to find two steel pins for a roll-down gate lock. It's a rather specific and odd request, especially for a Sunday afternoon in January.

I must've asked four Home Depot "associates" who sent me on the typical wild aisle goose chase before I finally grabbed a fifth associate by his orange apron straps, forcing him to understand what I was looking for. And once I got the kid to understand what I needed by using an amalgam of sign language and crude hieroglyphic hand gestures, I realised they didn't sell them, or didn't have them in stock or whateverthefuck. Fuck you and, goodbye.

Still poised for glory and allergic to defeat, I trudged onward to Grainger. I'd never been to a Grainger, I'd only driven by the one on 3rd Avenue en route to get my dog food from the guy under the Gowanus who looks like Harvey Keitel except fully clothed.

Well I guess Sunday is football day and so Grainger was closed. I should've known they'd be closed because I think they've even got that NFL announcer doing their radio spots. I guess 'the ones who get it done' had the day off.



My friend Rabbit suggested trying one of the hardware stores back in our neighbourhood on Fifth Avenue. I was reluctant but now I realise I was only reluctant because I had somehow subconsciously convinced myself that if Home Depot didn't have it, no one would. But 9 times out of 10 Home Depot had let me down in the past.

Somehow this false sense of hardware security permeated my psyche regardless of repeated disappointments and commercial failures and just like Smokey said, somehow, Home Depot really had a hold on me.

Well those days are over. Because guess who had the fucking roll-down commercial gate lock-pins I needed? The muthafuckin' hardware store on Fifth Avenue and 81st street, that's who! And the dude knew what I wanted instantly without me jumping up and down like I was a contestant on Pictionary (celebrity home improvement edition).



Props to Ace Hardware (Sunset Hardware Inc.)
8111 - 5th Avenue
718-748-0960
Open Mon., Wed. & Thurs. - from 8:30 AM to 6 PM;
Fri. - from 8:30 AM to 2 PM; Closed Sat.
Sun. - from 10 AM to 6 PM.
For all your landscaping, hardware, paint, household goods, and tools, etc.