Our horrible Home Depot experience

Our horrible Home Depot experience

• Sunday, February 4, 2018

If you follow me on instagram (and watch my stories) then you've already heard about this Home Depot experience and can skip on past it ;)

I only took one pictures this trip which probably tells you how chaotic of a trip it was since one picture is not my norm ha!

I had to run to Home Depot on a Saturday to pick up a new shelf/brackets for my linen closet (I'm in the process of purging ALL THE THINGS and organizing while I'm at it and I realized my linen closet could use another shelf to maximize organization space). I expected the worst part to be that I had no clue where to find the things I needed (thought I'd have to have wood cut and everything). Once I parked and had unbuckled the kids I realized that I had left my wallet at home. Annoying since I'd have to re-buckle everyone. But then - I realized I had a random credit card in my diaper bag. I checked the expiration and it was still valid and it was just my regular bank credit card so I figured that, while I didn't ever use it, it was still good & fine (strike 1).

I loaded the kids into one of those drivable carts and right away they were fighting over who got to drive it. I let the two youngest drive first and said that we would take turns. Well every time Luke had to give someone else a turn he screamed and tried to climb back into the drivers seat from the cart. He actually succeeded in doing this, ha! Anyway, right when we entered I had explained my project and asked where to find what I needed and found out that I wouldn't have to have anything cut after all because there is such a thing as pre-finished shelves - woohoo! Finding what I needed was actually relatively quick/easy and I was basically on cloud 9 thinking this trip was going to be way better than I had anticipated (strike 2). BTW Tom was working which is why I took all four kids with me...by myself.

Even though the kids were kind of being loud/some were whiny (aka Luke & Zoe) and everyone was still fighting over who got to drive the cart (next time I'm skipping that dang cart!!), I felt totally calm and like I pretty much had things under control. I mean, as much as you can be in control as a mom, which is never a lot, am I right? I had promised the kids that they could walk through the display exterior doors (they love to do this and I let them every time we go to a hardware store and nobody has EVER said that we couldn't!) so we headed that way. They were walking (NOT running, not being crazy) through the doors when an employee came up to me and told me she was going to have to close the doors because they weren't allowed to be playing with them because they weren't safe. They seriously were not being unsafe at ALL (I had told them to leave all the doors open so they weren't opening/shutting them, they weren't climbing on them, they weren't being crazy or running around...they were literally just walking over the door thresholds and through the doorways)! I asked her why it wasn't safe because...duh, I let them walk through our doors at home all. the. time. She told me that I could do what I wanted at home but she had to make sure they were safe at the store. Seriously, so dumb and I definitely told her off (I was a little bit dramatic, to be sure, but she made me so mad and was just being MEAN).

Since we had all our things, we headed to the checkout line. I waited for self checkout, scanned my things and then my card wouldn't take :/ I tried a few times and then realized it said on the other screen that it was declined. I really hadn't used this card in probably a couple years so I wasn't super shocked but I also didn't know why it wouldn't work. My account is still open and everything and it's just my credit card through Wells Fargo where I do all my banking! I asked a clerk to come help me and he suggested that maybe it was because my card seemed a little bent. I asked if I could try with a regular cashier instead of at self checkout, hoping that it was just that particular machine not taking my card (strike 3). Should have just left the store at this point and come back later with a good card but no, I pressed on.

Waited in line for the cashier, explained that my card hadn't worked at self-checkout but was hoping it would work here. At this point the kids were SO done, Zoe was whining to be let out of the cart, Luke had a poopy diaper and was screaming bloody murder. I just wanted to get OUT (with my stuff!). Well, shocker...my card also didn't take at the second register. So I asked if they had Apple Pay (no) and then saw on the credit card reader that it said they take PayPal (score!!...or so I thought). I asked if I could do that and it had me enter my phone number. Then it asked for a pin. Uhh, I don't have a pin. So at this point I was so determined to leave WITH my things because it already had been such a process of getting out of the store that I didn't want it to all be in vain!! I told the cashier I'd pull my cart to the side and see if I could figure out how to get a pin. I was so embarrassed that my card wasn't working and was so petrified that people thought I couldn't afford my $16 of supplies. I felt like everyone was thinking "this poor (literally poor) mom with four kids, can't even afford $16 for her modest home project." Thought I was going to die from embarrassment. I'm sure most people weren't even paying attention to me but I felt like everyone was judging me. Luke on my hip (screaming/thrashing around), Zoe in the cart screaming to get out, the boys being silly together and I was just so overwhelmed with trying to figure out this ridiculous pin thing that was NOT easy to get (at least on a mobile device). After several minutes of trying I finally realized I needed to get out of the store before I completely lost it and just started bawling. So I gathered up the kids, the paint strips I had picked out for their Valentine's Day presents (more on that later) and the book one of the kids brought in (??) and shooed them all out the door. On the way out a customer who was checking out commented to me: "they're really ganging up on you today." It took everything I had to laugh along with him instead of bursting into tears. It was the 4th or 5th comment I had received in the store (all well-meaning, I'm sure, and normally they don't offend me at all!) about how many kids I had/how I had my hands full/"you just need 3 more!"/"they're winning today"/"you are brave!" etc and if you are commenting any of these things then it just goes to show how obvious it is that I'm in over my head. So that comment was kind of the icing on the cake and the minute I stepped out of the store I was sobbing. Like ugly crying. I felt so embarrassed and stupid and overwhelmed and mad that I wasted my time and would have to come back and I just started thinking how we still have a full month left of busy season and it's all just so overwhelming at times.

Five minutes after this whole experience (well five minutes after sharing the experience on my instagram stories and crying all over again x10) I was totally fine and felt completely capable of being a normal, not sobbing human being the rest of the day and I'm sure I was completely dramatic in the moment but wow - it felt like a dramatic experience haha.

Taking care of 4 small children by yourself day after day, night after night for several weeks is no joke. I do not even know how wives of medical residents, deployed military personnel, or investment bankers do it. Let's not even talk about single parents. My two months of "single parenting" is a piece of cake compared to their long haul!

PS I did go back to Home Depot (by myself) later that night after Tom was home from work and we had put half the kids to bed. Got the three things I needed, remembered my wallet, paid my $16 and high-tailed it out of there.