I should have shopped locally

It had seemed like a good idea to stop at Home Depot for the roll of new fencing I needed. The operator on the phone quoted me a price of $124.99 when I called, and that was $30 less than here. And I was already coming back up the hill from a trip to the Bay Area. It was just that detour down Highway 65 to Stanford Ranch.

Sure, I got lost getting there, and then the guy with an earring sold me “deer fencing” and not “deer and rabbit fencing,” which is what I needed (and they do not carry).

But I didn’t know that. I’d saved $30 over the local price, or so I thought.

“I should have shopped locally,” I thought as I tried to return the fencing at Home Depot. I’d lost my receipt, so they couldn’t find me in the computer. The unsmiling woman in her orange apron that promised “we serve customers first” tried to convince me that I must have gone to Lowes next door, because if I wasn’t in the computer, I simply hadn’t bought it there.

I looked around at the huge space and felt a moment of panic. “But a guy with an earring sold it to me,” I protested. This seemed to have an impact: She knew who he was and when we located him, he remembered me.

Then they realized they’d entered the wrong number into the computer and found my receipt, and I was good to go. All told, I would waste two hours of a beautiful spring morning and about $20 in gas, but at least I got them to take back the fence.

“I should have shopped locally,” I wailed at the Highway Patrolman as he took my registration, driver’s license and proof of insurance and his bright lights flashed in my rear view mirror. I never noticed before that the configuration of those flashing lights goes red, blue, white, red in the center, then white, blue, red. Kind of pretty and an interesting except when they’re flashing at you to pull over and continue to flash at you accusingly while the officer writes up a speeding ticket.

I had been listening to KVMR and a song called “And the band played Waltzing Matilda,” about a man going off to World War I from Australia. Very moving. And then I was thinking about my mom, who was Australian and how we always sang “Waltzing Matilda” to her.

She’s been gone just over a year now, and the tears surprised me as I was coming up the hill, listening to that song. I guess those emotions, plus all the frustration of the Home Depot experience, made me put my foot on the pedal harder than I realized.

I didn’t tell the Highway Patrolman about the song and my mom, but I did tell him about the fencing and Home Depot — probably more than he wanted to know — and how “I should have shopped locally.”

To the cost of my “less expensive fence” I could now add on a hefty traffic fine and traffic school. Not to mention all the wasted time and energy, along with the humiliation of getting a speeding ticket.

Back home, Ralph, who is helping me with the fence, informed me that A-Z Supply has the fencing for $128.99 and it is the right stuff — deer and rabbit fencing.

So there you are. I should have shopped locally. Lesson learned: From now on, I will.

ooo

Diane Covington is a writer who lives in Nevada City.