This week my creative/getting-stuff-done element has been on fire.  Must be all the yoga opening my chakras n junk.  I hung frames and paintings on my walls, and I created a little “Artist’s Corner” to display my kids’ art.  It’s all still a work in progress, but I’m very happy with all I was able to accomplish, while also steadily attacking my to-do list.  I was so excited, in fact, that I got a little over-ambitious.  I decided that the shoe situation by the back door needed to be remedied.  I browsed Pinterest until I found a simple shoe storage bench I thought I could build, that would look good in that tiny space.

I have never built a piece of furniture before.  I’ve refinished and painted furniture, I’ve upholstered some bar stools, I’ve cut wood to make hand-lettered signs, and I’ve purchased small plywood pieces at a hardware store and had them cut to size for me, but I’ve never used plans to purchase lumber and then cut it to size and glue/screw it together.  But I figured, the weather is supposed to be really nice this weekend; I could totally spend some time outside learning how to do a project while my husband drinks beer and tells me I’m doing it wrong.

I took my littlest baby boy ray of sunshine with me and made the 40-minute drive out to Lowe’s in Easton.  When we got there I had to make a quick Snapchat because Day-O came on Pandora and you cannot just listen to that song without filming yourself imitating the dinner guests during that scene in Beetlejuice.  Once I got that out of the way, I buckled baby boy into a shopping cart and headed into the store.  The first thing I did was accidentally ram the cart into a kitchen island display because I’m clumsy and those carts are cumbersome.  I practically ran away into the lumber section, and proceeded to wander around for a few minutes, perusing the giant sheets of plywood that come in all different thicknesses and types of wood.  I don’t even know if I’m explaining that correctly, because I know zilch about lumber.  There were all these dudes in workboots and dirty, paint-splattered clothes hefting huge pieces of wood off shelves and onto their flatbed carts.  I just kind of, like, walked up and down the same aisle a few times trying to figure out what the heck I was even doing with my life.  And then Gregg came.

Gregg with 3 G’s.  The kind of guy who works at Lowe’s in the lumber department and knows everything there is to know about lumber.  A lumber aficionado.  The type who thinks everyone who doesn’t know everything there is to know about lumber is beneath him and an insufferable idiot.  He lumbered up the aisle (see what I did there?) toward me and the two dudes who clearly knew what the heck they were doing, raised his arms above his head like he was speaking to an auditorium, and shouted, “Does anyone need any help?”  “I do,” I said with a little wave and a smile.  “What do you need help with?” asked Gregg.  I proceeded to blubber through a monologue about Pinterest and disorganized shoes and a bench and that I needed to start with a 3/4″ sheet of plywood.  I could tell Gregg was wondering what kind of idiot wakes up in the morning and decides to screw up his day by asking for lumber when she clearly has no idea what she’s talking about.  So I did my best helpless damsel in distress impression and said, “Gregg, I have no idea what I’m doing.  I need your help.”  Gregg with 3 G’s lit the F up like I had just made his week.  I put myself at his mercy and let him teach me all the things there are to know about the Lowe’s lumber department.  He helped me pick out a giant piece of 3/4″ plywood that, he said, would not splinter when my kids’ little heinies sat upon it to put their shoes on.  He told me to make sure I told Sue at the front that Gregg was going to give me 50% off that $50 piece of plywood because “some numbnuts ran into it with a forklift.”  I could have kissed his sweaty temple.  He even ran and got me one of those flatbed carts with bars to slide long pieces of plywood into so baby boy could still ride on the side of the cart (it reminded me of how much I loved going to Hechinger with my dad as a kid and riding on the flatbed carts).

I got my 2x2x8’s and headed to see Sue at the front.  Gregg had gone ahead of me to tell Sue I was coming with a big ass piece of plywood and I would be getting a discount, then he pointed her out to me so I wouldn’t miss her.  I paid for my stuff and asked Sue if I could possibly get some help loading the lumber into my car.  She told me to leave my cart outside and pull my car up at the covered lumber pick-up area.  I got baby boy buckled in the car, did some rearranging and hoped to God that humongous piece of plywood would fit in my car.  Gregg was waiting with a young skinny guy to load my plywood in.  When I pulled up in my minivan, he gave me that are-you-kidding-me side-eye that I had already grown to love.  I opened my trunk and Gregg stood there, drinking it in.  I could see the wheels turning in his head.  This plywood was not fitting in my car.  He and skinny guy hoisted up the plywood and slid it into the back of my car as far as it would go, and sure enough, the plywood didn’t fit by a few inches.  Gregg walked over to me, hands on hips, and just stood there, breathing hard.  “What do I do, Gregg?” I asked.  “I guess I need some bungees.”  “Yeah, you do.  Aisle 19.  And I can’t do it for you,” he trailed off, and I understood that I would have to somehow bungee my trunk closed so that when it popped open on the ride home and the plywood slid out and caused a 10-car pileup, I couldn’t point the finger at Gregg.  So I left my car right there in the loading area, unbuckled baby boy, and headed back into the store.

As I looked at the bungees, I realized there was no way I was going to be able to bungee my back door closed.  No. freaking. way.  I was going to have to leave that stupid piece of plywood at the store, or go back in and have someone cut it for me.  But I wasn’t going down without a fight.  I grabbed a small box of bungees and headed back to Sue.  As I was walking back out to my car, my husband Facetimed me.  My husband is a turf equipment manager at a high-end country club.  He can fix pretty much anything.  He knows that sometimes I have delusions of grandeur.  When I caught him up to speed on the plywood situation and showed him the giant piece of plywood hanging out of the back of my car and the little box of bungees, he closed his eyes and slowly raised his palm to his face.  It’s like he’s my dad sometimes, and he’s not mad, he’s just disappointed.  And that makes it worse.  So I’m thinking to myself, these men think I’m stupid; they think I’m some helpless bimbo who can’t even buy a piece of plywood and get it home.  So I hung up on my husband and decided that plywood was going to fit in my car.

Baby boy was standing up in his car seat watching his mother unravel.  I began repeating, over and over, “I am a STRONG woman, and I DON’T need NO man to help me.”  Right there in the purchase pickup area.  I did not even care who heard me.  The man loading sheet metal into the van in front of me glanced over at me once then intensely avoided eye contact.  Two big burly men with big burly beards slowed down as they drove past me, watching me repeat my mantra and climb all over the inside of my car, moving seats, pushing and pulling on the plywood.  Finally I looked at my tailgate, and I could see that the plywood was going to fit, just barely.  And I yelled, to no one in particular, “AW YEAH!  Suck on THAT!”

I reveled in my accomplishment for a few moments, then I saw Gregg with 3 G’s walk past.

“Hey Gregg,” I said, “I got the plywood to fit!  I’m so excited!”  He looked at me, then into my car, than back at me like he could not believe I had done it.  “Where’s your little guy?” he asked, since the plywood completely obscured him from view.

“He’s in there somewhere,” I said.  “Hey, Gregg, thanks for all your help today.  I couldn’t have done it without you.  I told Sue, when I was buying the bungees, that you deserve a raise.”

“They just cut my hours,” said Gregg with a sad shrug, and then he walked away.  I love the Greggs of the world.  They have their slice of life, they do it well, they have a lot of heart but they’ve seen some hard times and it shows.  I’ll think about Gregg a lot over the weekend while I’m building my bench; not because I want to, but because my brain won’t let me forget him.  He really did make my day.  I smiled all through the rest of the errands I ran today, and I was extra patient with baby boy when he threw an I-want-candy tantrum at the grocery store.  I love how people surprise you like that, when you’re willing to take the time and the effort to peel back their layers.  My husband always teases me for wanting to befriend the unfriendable.  But I think those are the people who have the most to give.