Fail Depot.

“You can do it. We can help.”

that’s been the Home Depot marketing slogan for about six years. i don’t mind the first assertion, because i do believe i can do it. it’s the second half that i question.

about two weeks ago, Pants and i went and purchased a shiny new refrigerator. we bought it at hhgregg (pronounced “heeehhhhgregg”), and they are to deliver it this Saturday. on this new refrigerator is an ice maker, joy of Pants’ desire, unlike our current refrigerator. ice makers need water lines hooked up, but being young and foolish Pants and i determined we could handle that.

the ice maker installation kit we got instructed us to cut a hole in our kitchen pipe and bolt this contraption on. Pants decided (and i whole-heartedly agreed) that this was stupid and we didn’t want to cut holes in our pipes. (we even realized later that to do this in our kitchen we’d have to turn off the water to our entire building, which we did not want to do. NEIGHBORS, YOU CAN THANK US LATER.) so we hopped on down to the Home Depot, ready to get the T junction to screw into our set-up and voilà! have it ready for the fridge.

after spending about fifteen minutes staring and poking at the variety of plumbing pieces available, a couple Home Depot employees offered to assist us. we explained our situation and they sent us home with about $20 worth of little brass doodlebobbers and spinning things. a week later, i leave for the afternoon on a Saturday and Pants attempts the install.

on the phone, on my way home, he informs me he cannot do this install without breaking our pipes. this pisses me off. i don’t like when there’s a plan, a seemingly simple plan, and it cannot be executed. so when i arrive, i cast my critical eye on the pipe situation and determine (approximately) what we ACTUALLY need to make this install happen.

we head BACK to Home Depot, where, after another 15-20 minutes of looking and poking, two more employees offer assistance. i tell them i need a 5/16" to 1/4" adapter. i am then informed that Home Depot doesn’t carry anything 5/16". i say, oh, is this a rare size? “it is to Home Depot” is the response. i then ask for a 1/4" male-to-male coupler. they do not have couplers! (the people at Home Depot are, on the most part, very nice. just not necessarily knowledgeable.)

at this point i’m annoyed and getting angry. yes, Home Depot, i CAN do it — but apparently you are not even remotely close to helping, as your employee pointed us to an ACE HARDWARE STORE down the street.

after a detour home to get a little drawing of what our sink junction looked like and reassure ourselves that this is not a ridiculous thing, we headed down to Fischer’s Ace Hardware. poked at plumbing parts for about five minute before an older gentleman asked if we needed any help. told him our situation… he didn’t need to see our drawing or look at sizes or anything. he took us to the next aisle over and handed us a SINGLE PART that would do what we wanted. A SINGLE PART. he also gave us a little advice on the install, and $10 and 10 minutes after arriving at Fischer’s we were on the way home with EXACTLY THE PART WE NEEDED.

so much for Home Depot’s most recent slogan, ”More Saving. More Doing.” we wasted money and time by trusting they’d be able to help.

incidentally, Fischer’s carried both 5/16" compression fittings AND 1/4" male-to-male couplers.