the test

today i went to home depot. this was particularly ambitious because: 1) this is peak tourist season in NY and therefore impossible to do any mundane task without coming face-to-face with a hundred people on the street taking pictures; and 2) i had just gone to the eye doctor and my eyes were completely dilated. i could see 15 feet in front of me, but struggled to read anything within an arms length. 

i had a mission at home depot. besides the double-sided tape to mount my spice rack (true story) and a random assortment of incidentals, i was in need of a few bookshelves for my apt. nothing fancy, just something to hold the 6 boxes worth of books i've had stacked in my kitchen since i moved. 

so here i am in the basement of home depot in the middle of manhattan. there are probably 5 workers for every square foot of store, but they each are relegated to a section. they can move freely between areas if they are escorting a customer, but beyond that they stick to their borders. once i found the bookcases, i felt that i had really scored. my orange vested saviour (brandon) was standing no less than five feet away from my desired purchases. brandon was talking to another customer, so i gave him a little wave and a head nod to show him i'd like him to swing by when he was done. i know he saw this, because he nodded back, much like a bartender nods when they non-verbally promise to come back momentarily to get your next round. i wait around for another 4 minutes before i start to get antsy. i begin to eavesdrop on brandon's conversation with said "customer" and realize that this dude is not even looking to purchase anything and the two of them are engaged in a blatant pick-up situation. they are chatting about exhibits at the Frick and grad school, not bookshelves or hinges, or even power drill mechanics. i give brandon another nod, but this time he averts eye-contact. i start to walk towards him, but he turns the other way. this is when i begin the test. in an unmedicated state, i probably would have just gone and complained or pulled him away from his potential date, but my temporary blindness was clouding my judgement. 

test #1 - the lap. i stare intently at the items i want, pace around for a bit, read the contents of the boxes, and make it obvious that i'm perusing the items in his area. i then exit the aisle, circle back through another aisle and come back around to the same spot i was in. this was no doubt a majorly passive aggressive move, but if i were to make a media analogy to this, i was trying to work the frequency angle.  

test #2 - the substitute. i walk away from the items and attempt to flag down another orange vest. miraculously it takes me a good 3 aisles before i find another vest. well it turns out that this vest is assigned to another dept. i accompany him to drop off a cart to brandon; then he leaves us, assuming that brando will be so kind to help me out. brandon looks up at me, glances at the cart, and then continues chatting away.

test #2 - the weak girl. i'm not particularly strong these days - it's been at least 5 months since i've hit the gym. i'm still not back to my normal weight pre-gallbladder, and don't look like i could lift a ton of weight. that said, most normal employees go out of their way to make sure customers don't have to lift heavy objects. especially when the customer is a female. also, i wasn't wearing sweatpants, which usually earns me a fair amount of brownie points when asking for assistance in a store. despite my nods, and even a verbal plea for help, it's apparent that brandon isn't going to help me. from there, i take the cart and bring it over to the shelving with the boxes of the bookshelves. really truly at this point i would have thought brandon would have stepped in - even if i were a dude and he was in the middle of helping someone (which he wasn't). keep in mind my eyes are still dilated - actually getting worse - and somehow lifting objects seems like a great idea to me. i slide one of the 35 lb bookshelves off of the second shelf. after two attempts of wobbly swinging around the awkward box (the weight was distributed oddly so that one side was way heavier than the other) i manage to drop it into the cart. i swing the cart around past brando and his future boy toy, thank him for all of his help, and proceed to checkout. 

now i can't say i was completely right in this situation - i was messing up his game after all - but jesus. this was not a matter of waiting my turn. for the record, i don't recommend following my testing techniques. nor do i suggest doing any heavy lifting while experiencing impaired vision. i suppose it serves me right for disrupting the opthamological gods.