Today in class we discussed media literacy, and the value of reading about the world around us, as citizens and as journalists. Before that I gave the class the hardest current events quiz ever assembled. That got their attention.

This evening I went to Lowe’s, because I needed to examine door locks, but also find a few screws and nuts for tripods. This was an hour poorly spent.

I wrote about it on Twitter, and that got the Lowe’s staffer on OMG alert to ask me to write them an email. So I did:

I was in this evening trying to find some particularly sized nuts and bolts. A woman stocking shelves there did try to help me for a moment, beyond her normal role of putting boxes in particular places and kicking loose screws under the shelving.

I’m in those sliding drawers looking for the right metric sizes — hex screws I could find, the corresponding nuts were nowhere to be found. She looked with me for a moment, noting this section is hard to keep straight and organized. “People stealing,” she said. I found 106 trays for potential options of screws of varying dimensions and lengths. There were 13 trays for potential nuts, though none of the size my project needs.

This was a good half hour into the search. Not one red-vested person passed by, other than the shelf-stocking woman whom I approached.

I decided I’d buy what I need online, less aggravation, and skip the electronic door lock project I had all together. Who needs this much frustration in one trip?

I know you hear this stuff all the time, and whomever reads this can only do so much beyond empathize a little. I hope this next part you’ll keep close to heart and kick up stairs:

You’re kidding yourselves if you think this sort of experience is unique to that one store. You’re kidding yourselves if you think people don’t notice. You read these sorts of things all day, don’t you?

This was, perhaps, too on the nose, but they wrote back to say they needed my contact information to fix this. No they don’t. My mailing address won’t solve this problem. Though it would allow them to send me a little gift card, which is a thoughtful bribe, but I’d rather they try to address the problem.

I don’t know why you don’t have someone standing near the exit door, asking the people who leave empty handed why they couldn’t find what they needed. No one goes to Lowe’s or Home Depot to just look around.

They certainly wouldn’t do it more than once.

I had barbecue for dinner, though, and started a new book, so that was grand. Now I’m watching the student-journalists at The Crimson put their paper to bed. It is a fine night. It is 65 degrees outside and nice in here, but already some of them are bundling up. They don’t yet have an idea of how cold it can get in the newsroom.

One day I’ll have to tell them about the studio where I once worked that was so cold you could barely type. Or about standing outside on a cold, gray off day, trying to figure out why stomping my feet didn’t generate any warmth or feeling in my toes before watching a kid escape from a house where he was being held hostage. Or about being tear gassed on a frigid winter evening while covering a stupid protest (as in, not even a well-respected one) downtown. A coolish newsroom isn’t so bad.

I’d rather do all of those things than spend time in a big box hardware store, though.