A man and his dog

Dave and Prue are busy working on the floor today. The sanding is almost done and that will leave staining and sealing and then it will be finished. And none too soon, since there is a major hurricane heading toward the Gulf of Mexico and, quite possibly, the panhandle of Florida where a lot of my family lives. We may need to move out of the spare bedroom sooner than we thought. I am hoping to be able to talk my mom and grandmother into coming up here if Hurricane Ike looks like it will be targeting the panhandle and we'll need all the spare room we can get.

So far, today has been busy. We went to Lowe's to rent a sander early this morning only to get it home and have it not work. Figures. So we took it back, along with about $60 worth of sandpaper. Dave actually had to explain that the sander did not work and ask for his money back to the same clerk that had rented it to him. I guess she just assumed that he had sanded his floor really really fast and that he was turning it back in. After an hour. It made me miss those little mom and pop hardware stores where you actually got to talk to someone who knew what they were talking about and also where you could count on good customer service. At Lowe's, you pretty much have to fight for your rights as a customer and service is usually mediocre at best.

So, after returning the broken sander to Lowe's, we went to a privately owned tool rental place where we got really great customer service. And the rental was not only cheaper, but we get to keep it thru Monday even though we are technically renting it for one day because this location is closed on Sundays. We will definitely be renting from there again in the future and I will make it my mission to get Dave to shop at smaller, privately owned hardware stores and not at corporate chains. If we can find any near our house, that is. They seem to be a dying breed and that makes me really sad for the future of this country.