No 'guts', no glory

With the countdown at a little over three weeks, we have begun to panic a little bit about getting the house ready for Isaac’s arrival. With Megan being gone, doing some extremely high-level church business, I have used the last two days to do some much needed work around the house. One of the things I have done involves our toilet upstairs. Because we are using cloth diapers (49 million diapers are thrown away A DAY in the United States), we have this handy dandy sprayer that connects to the water line that leads into the toilet. The idea is you spray the diaper off into the toilet, which is supposedly less messy. The verdict is still out about that. Anyways, to install the sprayer, I had to shut off the water and take out a part and then install another part. In the process, mainly because the toilet seems to be the original when the house was built sixty years ago, I managed to break off a key part. To a lesser man, a phone call to a plumber would have followed. But not me. Call it pride if you will, I was determined to do this on my own. After a trip to a store (which I will comment on in a second), I had to parts needed to change the ‘guts’ out in my toilet. After some blood and sweat, I did it. Now, I am not one to talk a big game about much and I am definitely not one of those macho guys, but there isn’t much more ‘manly’ than changing the ‘guts’ out in a toilet. Insert Tim Allen’s macho grunt from Home Improvement, HUH, HUH, HUH!

As I said, I had to go to a store to get the needed supplies. I went to one of those large home improvement chain stores. Needing a couple of other things, I wandered around that stupid store for about an hour, looking lost all the while. When I finally did suck it up and asked for help, my question about another home improvement issue, was met with the response, “Can I special order that for you?” When I said no, the lady curtly told me that I would have to find the department specialist, that she couldn’t help me. Nice, gotta love that. Sooner or later, I found what I was looking for without anyone’s help. When I got home, I had another problem. Instead of going back to the big store mentioned above, I decided to go down the street, to the local ‘mom and pop’ hardware store. I was greeted by the usual folks, both of which asked, “What can we do for you?” Now, normally that question intimidates me because I really don’t know what I need, just that I need help. But here, the question wasn’t intimidating at all. I simply explained my problem and they went about getting me exactly what I needed to fix it. A very inexpensive solution, I might add. A great lesson in life about the fact that bigger is seldom better and personal service goes a very long way.

This reminded me of one of Megan’s favorite songs by David Wilcox called East Asheville Hardware. Check it out sometimes. It’s great. Here are the lyrics:

An angel appeared in a holy vision
Stood by my bedside in shivering light
Spoke my name Told me my mission
I could not believe I was hearing him right
Because he said, 'Go, my son, go...

Always go to East Asheville Hardware
Before you go to Lowe's

He said, "Go to East Asheville Hardware
Before you go to Lowe's

You'll help to keep them open
I'm worried they might close
From the stiff competition
From the national conglomerate
With the full page ad
in the color section of the Sunday paper supplement
and stacks of plastic swimming pools
and seven brands of power tools
and rows and rows of registers
all having nice days

But no, you go, he said to me with light around his face
He said, You go first to that age-old place
To that old wooden door that you have to close behind you
To the wide-board wooden floor worn down soft

To the real thing
Good advice, quality at a fair price
And know that they know how deep the frost goes here.

Sure there's stuff you'll have to find at Paty's, Lowe's or Sears

But go to East Asheville Hardware
Go to East Asheville Hardware
Before it disappears.