Home Despot

More Halloween ideas, this time brough to you by the City Paper and Night Dreams or some such place...


Way hotter than any Wiccans I know.

J Edgar Hooter.

(Insert lumber joke here.)

Can't say that I've ever had anything close to an amatory thought anywhere near a Home Depot, much less being attracted to anyone wearing an orange smock.

In fact, our local Home Depot is particularly unsexy*. When I was there last week, I saw at least a dozen birds chillin' in the bird seed aisle, chompin away at an split bag. Big ones too, like starlings and pigeons. I could also hear the sparrows in the rafters above, just waiting to poop all their bird flu grossness everywhere.

Bird flu! BIIIIIIRRRRRDDD FLLLLLUUUUU!

Now I know birds are in just about any of the big box hardware stores, but there were a ton hanging out. And they didn't fly away when I walked by. They just gave an annoyed whooo and begrudgingly stepped aside.

I emailed Home Depot when I got home, attempting a combination of witty and annoying.

Is there an official Home Depot policy about how many birds are permitted into a store at once? I understand the difficulty on keeping them out, but is there a point when there is one bird too many?

To tell the truth, I hoped they would not respond because I'd prefer them to be a cold, faceless company. And it would be funnier if it was just a one-sided conversation. But to be fair, they wrote back...

We continue to consider methods for preventing birds from entering our stores; however, despite our reasonable efforts, on occasion birds find their way in. For the well-being and safety of our customers and associates, our policy is to contact a licensed pest control agency to remove the birds. The pest control agencies remove the birds in accordance with state Department of Environmental Protection or Natural Resources guidelines and regulations, many of which require the destruction of animals that if reintroduced to nature could be harmful.

We regret any harm that comes to birds in our stores; however, the health and safety of our customers and associates must always remain our primary concern.

Please continue to visit us at homedepot.com for information on all of your home improvement needs!

Sincerely,

Non-Robotic response Lady

There you have it. They don't shoo them out and lock the door, they kill them by some
bureaucratic guideline. Do you think they sell that sexy costume with a gas mask and
 poisonous bird seed?

* Other reasons why I find that specific Home Depot to be uncomfortable.

1. CS - He's a guy from a rival high school who works in the garden department. We went head to head for four years on the football field and, for a while, he dated a friend of mine. CS reminds me of that guy in Grosse Point Blank who asks Cusack if he wants to do blow and then starts crying and reads poetry. But he's still an okay guy.** I saw him when I was trying to buy mulch and he went on and on about HS, his wife and his second wife, people we knew, his kids, et al. But, he volunteered, there were going to be no more youngens because he was getting his tubes tied. Then he made a little "tying shoelaces" motion near his bellybutton. I asked if he meant his wife was having her tubes tied but he said was going to be him. I wished him luck in the curiously feminine procedure for a 25 year old man and have opted to only travel into the garden section after making sure he's not working.

2. The sniper killing. Both the G and my dad were at that store that day. In fact, the murder occurred between the time he left the parking lot and when he got home and turned on the news. The G, D, and Nabob were all at the Wilco/Boas show that night and missed several frantic phone calls from family who thought the G was still there. It weirds me out that people park their cars on the spot where that woman died.

** Some of my other friends may disagree with this statement for CS briefly worked as a bouncer at the now quondam Odds on 20th St (the one that's now the pharmacy/photo lab of a CVS.) He confiscated my mates fake IDs though he was only a few months older than us. Not mine, though, that sucker fooled cops and has its own wing in the fake ID hall of fame. CS was #1 and my friend's "punk list."