Trade descriptions act – fnarr
Today I needed to get something done…. despite being at work.
So lunch in B&Q it was for me, so off I went, armed with my newly acquired TradePoint Card and sporting a three piece suit, overcoat and tie.
Straight to the store returns counter to return some ¾ inch tap extensions and a couple of ¾ inch tap flanges that I’d bought when I should have bought ½ inch jobbies. I was politely told I was trade and I had to go to the trade counter… I’d not realised it, but now my card allowed me the luxury of a trade counter access and a trade car parking spot littered with vans and men who were not sporting three piece suits, ties or even overcoats.
I felt a little out of place… I felt as though I’d contravened the trade descriptions act… snarf.
Anyway extensions and flanges returned and it was over to plumbing to buy some 40 mil (not millimetre now, for I was a man of the trade) piping, some new flanges (I already had the correct ½ inch tap extensions I’d bought previously which I’d assumed were the wrong size) a pipe elbow, some wall ties and a pipe splitty section – that would allow me to fit my waste pipes from my new dishwasher and my newish washing machine to one waste pipe at once. I was ashamed that I had to ask a sales assistant, anyway my clothes didn’t hint at the fact that I might be a trade card holder, so all was well in the plumbing aisle. He pointed me at the right bits of pipe, gave me a brief idea of how to fit them and all in all was very helpful and my pride was left intact.
I toddled off to timber, noted the bit that I wanted to finish off my secure door, headed back to the trade counter, paid for my plumbing bits then dumped them in the car and re-parked in the trade section – a sort of parent and child section reserved for real men and the occasional real woman.
I headed back in, I didn’t need any help in the trade timber section and I didn’t need my plank sawn to size, I had grown up building pigeon lofts with my Dad, I knew my way around a bit of wood. I sighted up a plank, checked it for lateral warping, pulled it out of the rack and headed back to the trade counter picking up a two for one offer on a couple of hardpoint saws on the way.
I borrowed a tape rule, sheesh I know you should always carry one, marked off the midpoint on the length of timber, paid for my purchase and sawed it into two equal lengths in the carpark. I’m not bad with a saw and I could see van curtains twitching to spy on the idiot in the suit and tie sawing away in their section of the carpark. I made a neatish but more importantly some short work of the wood, bundled it into the car and headed to the burger van for a cheeseburger and coke.
Yeah, that’s right, Mr. suity knows how to cut a plank of wood in two without losing fingers and he’s so manly he thinks nothing of finishing off with a burger washed down with a can of coke.
I even fancied buying a copy of the Sun.