This morning, at the Wal-Marts

[merrily]

So last night my sink broke. Again. The strainer and threaded bit (usually attached to each other) had cracked apart, and suddenly I had a big bloody hole under the tap, and a large puddle in the cabinet underneath.

It was too late to do anything about it, so I mopped up the worst of the puddle, went to bed, woke up reallllly early this morning and dragged myself off to WalMart, which is in the mall a block from my house.

(There is no hardware store, or Canadian Tire, or whathaveyou anywhere close. If I had any non-WalMart option, I would've taken it.)

So there I am at 7 in the morning, bleary-eyed, dressed half in my pajamas, and faced with the WalMart dayshift - that is, the finest that WalMart has to offer.

Which is when this happened:

Me (corralling nearest employee): Where's the hardware section?

Employee: Down these stairs. What do you need?

Me: I need a basket and strainer assembly for my sink.

Employee: (blank look)

Me: It's the bit that attaches the sink to the pipe? It's broken.

Employee: I'll take you to the hardwares staffer.

(She takes me to the hardwares staffer.)

Employee, to the hardwares dude: This lady needs some liquid plumber.

Me: No, that's not what I need. I need the actual piping.

Hardwares Dude: The piping.

Me: It's called a basket and strainer assembly?

Hardwares Dude: So, maybe a plumbing snake?

Me: NO.

Hardwares Dude: (looking futilely over their pitiful collection of house hardware) Maybe it's also called a flapper?

Me: ... That's a part of a toilet.

OH WALMART. Perhaps you should look for more qualified employees, and then pay them enough that they'll a)take the job and b)stick around.