No Big Box Stores Challenge: Comment Overheard

I wrote this on 3/26/08, but for some reason never published it. Go figure.

Last week I was in a line at work to grab a bite for lunch before our monthly all-hands meeting, when three ladies whom I've never spoken to walked up behind me and began to wax about gardening.

Naturally, I was very interested, and eavesdropped on their conversation.

Lady 1: "I usually go to Capital Nursery¹ and get their advice about plants and what does well here, and then I go to Home Depot or Lowe's to buy the actual plant."
Ladies 2 & 3: "I do the same thing!"

OMG what in the hell is wrong with people? You'd rather spend $20 at a store in which store profits are shipped back to some headquarters location and counted greedily by accountants and returned to stock holders than in a store in which the profits stay in the local economy? Yet you go into the local store, waste the knowledgeable people's time just so you can get an effing better deal?

Honestly people. Where are your scruples?

There's a local camera store in Sacramento that started charging people for advice because they found people would come in, play with the cameras and get their advice then leave and go buy the items at Walmart or online. I said, good for the camera store!

Now I don't mind if people shop at Home Depot or Lowe's (ok, maybe I do just a little bit), but that's their choice, and I've made mine. But to waste the time and money of a local garden store just to walk into a store that labels an invasive weed like Scotch Broom as "Azaleas" is beyond me.

That statement from those ladies infuriated me. I wanted to turn around and "educate" them, but in my better judgment I decided not to.

And then one of them threw in this statement:

"Yeah, I want to plant redwoods along my fence line so I have privacy from my neighbors."

ARRRRGHHHHH!

¹ Capital Nursery is a locally-owned nursery in the Sacramento, California area. I believe they operate two stores.