Suggestions for Lowe's Home Improvement:

I have to tell you what happened to me Thursday when I went to Lowe's Home Improvement Store. My hubby wanted me to pick up 3 packages of hinges for a cabinet. He told me to ask a clerk to help me get them. Okay, that I planned to do, so I asked the first clerk I saw for help. She didn't even know where to look for hinges and she said it was her first day on the job. That's fine so I went in search of another clerk. While looking for a person, I found the area where hinges are kept in these little bins with hinged plexiglass lids. With no clerks around, I began looking for the bin which would contain the right sized one for Hubby. I finally located it (at the floor level by the way...who can read those little numbers while standing on your head!). I started looking through them and found one in a packet with the correct numbers but I found several in there with the wrong numbers on them. Worst of all, most of them were out of the packets, had no numbers that I could see on the hinge itself, and naturally, they didn't have the little screws with them! This was very frustrating! Looking around, I saw no clerks available so I decide to dig through the bin more thoroughly when the dratted lid came down on my arm and made 5 "v"-shaped cuts in my arm! I started bleeding like a stuck pig but still saw no clerk so, dripping blood along the aisle, I started toward the restroom to find some paper towels...none there but there was plenty of toilet tissue. A nice clerk came in and asked if I was okay and I told her the problem. She said she would go find a first aid kit but it was her first day too. I kept using up the toilet tissue to stop the red river. 2 more nice clerks came in and wanted to know if I was okay. I said yes, if I didn't bleed to death before a bandage showed up. When the man with the bandage showed up, so did about 6 more clerks. He asked if I was on blood thinners and I said no but I do take a small aspirin usually (I had not that day or the day before, however, but I am a heart patient). Finally, after getting my bandage in place, I carried the one little hinge that I had held on to up to the front of the store. One cashier was so busy that I went to the only other one open (no one else was there) and laid my hinge down. The cashier kept putting in a bunch of numbers while another watched (I was in pain wanting to get in the car and just sit awhile...I was clammy and pale). Finally, she took my hinge, rung it up, and I paid her the grand total of $2.67. The other clerk looked at me and said, "she will learn how to work this register before the day is over" (Evidently it was her first day on the job too). I have a better suggestion: before teaching the new help anything else, teach them how to respond to any unforeseen accidents, especially in a store like Lowe's where accidents are prone to happen. That whole episode took about 45 minutes when it should have been taken care of in less than 5 minutes. Boy, am I glad it wasn't a major emergency! And I still don't have all the hinges I was supposed to get! That means another 50-mile round trip back to Lowe's for $5. 34 hinges and $10 worth of black gold, fuel that is!