Yesterday I went to the home improvement store to get some paint. My wife & I have been remodeling our kitchen & turning the wood trim to white much to my wife’s delight. The dark colored trim is something she never cared much for. So I went to the closest store instead of the professional paint store to just ‘get it done.’ That would prove to be my first mistake.
When I got there, there were so many types of paint. It was hard to choose a brand let alone the right type of paint. The trim is primed, but it still requires a particular type of semi-gloss paint special for trim. The paint department worker was helping another guy get the same type of paint. I heard the guy ask the worker ‘what do you recommend?’ as if he were a pharmacist. The paint department worker said “I would go with the alkyd. It’s like oil based but it’s not & it has an enamel finish.” This is word for word what google says about alkyd. I grabbed a gallon of the same & the worker put both in the shaker. The worker’s interaction with a 3rd customer went very similarly.
What struck me is how much respect the customers appeared to have for the paint department worker. This was a bigger chain store by the way so the worker may’ve never even painted anything himself. I had a bad feeling but I bought the paint anyway.
When I got home & got started, the paint started to drip. It was very thin. It felt like I was painting with ice cream on a hot day. On top of that, it was sticky to work with. When the paint dried, it looked kind of plastic; not like the nice trim paint I’ve used in the past.
I thought about the world we live in filled with big box stores & department workers. I should’ve gone to the paint store. I don’t blame the worker. He was doing the best he could in the environment he was in. It makes me wonder most of all about the dilemma that the modern day customer is in. With so many choices how do we discover the right path.

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