So, Saturday I am at Hope Depot for my weekly sawdust therapy session. and because I love Hope Depot I try not to get unreasonably angry at them when they pull little tricks on me like rearranging where the sand paper is. Of course it’s never a big obvious rearrangement, but something like two shelves down and to the left, so that I automatically stop at where my brain tells me the sandpaper should be but am instead looking a putty knives. Because I can see that if you have to bend your body at a 90-degree angle to check out grit sizes you’re more likely to purchase more sandpaper. That makes sense.

However I do find the sandpaper, although it doesn’t look like my regular sandpaper, and I’m staring at the package quizzically trying to figure out why this stuff is only 3 sheets to a package– which seems a little stingy to me– when a voice from somewhere behind me says (and I quote):

“Whutcha sandin dude?” (Except it sounds more like “doo”)

To which I reply…

“What??” (Picture my eyebrows contracting into a solid crinkled line over the bridge of my nose.)

To which the smallish man now standing next to me (not a Home Depot employee, for the record) clarifies:

“Whutcha sandin d00?”

Okay first. Don’t call me dude. MysteryMan does this sometimes when we’re watching football and he’s trying to explain some complex concept like two-point-conversions or whatnot and I constantly have to reiterate that just because I own power tools and have been duct-taped to a chair in front of a television on which football is playing i do not have testicles. Okay?

Secondly, I am obviously deep in thought over my sandpaper here. Do not bother me. But in an effort not to be superbitch I answer him, and truthfully.

“Uh… broomsticks.”

Then I go back to working up a good rage over the audacity to charge $4 for three sheets of sandpaper. When my Home Depot buddy, who had turned away for a minute, looks back at me quizzically and says: “Uh…How many broomsticks?”

As if the answer to this question will allow him to fully asses the sanity of what appears to be a twelve-year-old girl wearing purple Uggs and swearing under her breath at packages of sandpaper.  

I glance over at him. “Um. Four.” And then, as if to clarify, I say “Look, I’m just trying to figure out why there are only three sheets to a package…” Because obviously that explains everything.

He laughs and walks away, and I refrain from throwing a putty knife at the back of his skull.

Dude.