What a bore

While at the Home Depot on Saturday (I sometimes wish I still went to the Apartment Depot, which is just a big warehouse full of people standing around saying, "I don't have to fix shit."), I got to thinking.

I wanted a 5/8-inch wood-boring bit, which I found, no sweat. But I didn't want to buy a set of bits, so I had only one choice, an Irwin Speedbor spade bit. Fine, whatever. But this is a far cry from what you'd call a self-respecting store in Japan, where I would have expected at least four or five brands, and probably more.

Sure, the Home Depot could claim it limits choices because it has so many different goods. What rubbish. How would you feel if you went to the grocery store and found only one brand of coffee? I wouldn't go there anymore.

Of course, the Home Depot has killed the alternatives, mostly. But I visited the "local" stores before they went out of business, and they were no great shakes, either. To really have a choice around here, you have to go online.

I made this observation a while back, and a commenter remarked that pretty much anything could be found around here, if you just looked.

Uh-huh.

What he meant is, if you want hand lotion, you can find hand lotion. He didn't mean you can find Kiehl's. At times like this, I do not like living in a small city.