Wild Goose Chase

Friday night on TV, I saw an ad for the local Home & Garden Show. The ad had a photo of a sink with fancy faucetry. I decided to Get Something Done! I was going to get photos of all our faucets that need replacing and print them out, adding measurements. Then I would bring them to the Home and Garden Show, where there would be great bargain prices for quality fixtures. I'd buy all the new faucets and spigots and sink drains and be ready to call the plumber on Monday.

On Sunday morning, I took the photos, processed them, and measured and wrote down the measurements. The photo looking up at the plumbing under the kitchen sink took some body contortion and several attempts, but I got a helpful photo, I think. On Sunday afternoon, no one in the family wanted to go to the show with me, but I figured I'd be on a mission and so decided not to call any friends, though I thought of a few who would probably enjoy this kind of event. I didn't want to jeopardize my comparison shopping among the plumbing booths by having a friend to distract me.

I had to park in a lot downtown. It was earmarked for the arena where the event was taking place, which I figured meant it would be free. No. It was not at all free. I parked on the first floor, so I had only 4 flights of stairs to walk down (or up again later), which felt relatively safe downtown on a Sunday. The event was just 2 blocks away.

There must have been close to 100 booths. There was an area with landscaping booths, an area with homebuilding booths, and there were booths of every sort imaginable for home stuff. There were bed sellers, home security systems, pots and pans and other kitchen gadgets, deck builders, countertop renovators, and remodelers of all kinds. There were no displays of plumbing fixtures! I went through the entire place. It wasn't really that big; certainly not the way I remember the shows at the NYC Coliseum I used to go to. But I was disappointed.

I settled for looking into gutter guards. Actually, I might have gotten some good advice. A remodeling expert told me that if I got the faucets changed and then was going to change my countertops, I'd have to hire a plumber to remove and replace the faucets.

I followed some folks out and ended up behind a couple who had their car parked very near mine. It's always nice to have company in a public parking lot stairwell!

So now I'm having to decide about countertops before faucets. And what before countertops? Paying back college loans, I guess!

2 steps forward, one step back.