Hardware Stores and a Set of Swings

Hardware stores were a central tangle in my days as a project manager. I knew from day one that if I was unable to make peace with them, I was in for a rough time.  And, still, sometimes when I look at the splendid new building I see it as one thousand trips to the hardware store. Sitting on the porch I might casually glance at  those shiny, little metal things at the base of the poles and  remember standing in the back aisle of Acornhoek’s Cashbuild, pulling the same sharp angled joints from a dusty bin onto the floor, crouching as I painstakingly counted out 50 left, 50 right.   Or, I might gaze at the whitewashed wall and remember sitting in my hot, little car waiting for some old man in overalls to shuffle up with a 20k bag of the dusty white powder and then, the puff that filled the car as he placed it in my hatch.

Walking through the front door of a hardware stores has never filled me with the same anticipatory shiver of delight which I invariably feel when I walk into a fabric shop, a book, art supply or thrift store. No, instead, as I approach the entrance to a hardware store I pull myself tall and mentally try to toughen myself in preparation for whatever is to follow.  There is almost nothing in this metal, plastic, concrete jungle which appeals to my senses and my nose crinkles like a real girl as I prowl the aisles in search of whatever.   And, then, there is the exasperation of never having quite enough information or the pitch perfect, correct information. Invariably, I know the size of the grinding disc for the baby grinder but I don’t know if we are to cut steel or concrete. Maybe, I know the exact length of the nail needed at the site but not the diameter.  If you join my inherent hardware store distaste with my impatient nature and then couple this package with repeated trips to rural South African hardware stores, it just plain looks bad.

 It was obvious that something needed to change. Things got worse as the building progressed and sometimes I came home with 5 or more receipts bulging out from my wallet. I needed to find a way to manage this and I needed it fast. Did I discover the answer, the stance, the magic potion to make hardware stores something other than a trial for me?
I did.

It certainly was not that I finally found patience in a country that models that quality all too well. No, as I stood in line, surrounded by all shapes and sizes of patient people with soft smiles and listened to a young builder using the cash register as his job cost estimator my internal agitation rose. He was speaking in Tsonga but I could guess what the words were, “Try taking just 1/2 that many nails......... Now make sure you use the cheapest cement and forget about that wire....what’s the total like then?”  

I certainly did not become an expert on building supplies and techniques, did not get curious about how things fit together or intrigued with how things work. All that information like the mechanics of a motor, still just slips right through my head, whoosh. There are no hooks for hanging such things in my brain. It was choice that saved me and saved me almost by mistake.

It was a bad day at the hardware store. The trucks were going out with orders which meant that all my most trustworthy helpers were too busy to assist me in the electrical supply aisles. There was  a good chance that half the things in my basket were wrong and  I saw that it was Desiree, the very slowest of the check out women, at the till. It was early in the morning and many had building projects underway that day. The line was long, the going slow. I sighed as I took my place in line and tried for a gentle smile. It was then that it happened, it was then that I saw a vivid image in my head of 7 year old Elena, swinging, back and forth, up and down with a big so happy smile on her face. Somehow when I saw her swinging I was instantly back at the New Dawn Center watching the children on the new play structure. If I let myself rest in that pocket of pure joy, a child swinging for the first time in her life, a nursery school gaggle climbing the ladders, sliding down the slides, everything changes within me. All that is crinkled, crabby, crumpled becomes suddenly smooth, like the dusk smooth stillness of a small lake after a rainstorm.  
It is the play structure bursting with children which became my solution to hardware stores. It was from these dark aisles that the bolts, nails, wood and cement came. It was Nick and Mike who built it and it is all the children of the community who delight in it but it began in a hardware store. This is the image I call forth as I reach for the front door of the Acornhoek hardware store for the 1,001st time.