Republicans: Economic Failures

 Well, today's already started out better than yesterday.  The sun is out.  Yesterday we had clouds throughout most of the day.  The sun didn't make an appearance until late in the afternoon.  On cloudy days I'm rather a meh person, not really wanting to do anything.  Of course, I had to zip off down to Lebanon shortly after the crack of dawn and that screwed up my scheduling as well.

I did get some writing done yesterday, but mostly I just wanted to nap, and read.  

There were 3 areas of my floor that I patched with plastic wood and tried staining with one of those stain pens.  Well, it didn't work at all.  The patched areas looked dirty, and the polyurethane finish didn't help, so I sanded them down and bought some real stain.  Pricey, but it looks much better.  

When I was down at the VA yesterday, one of the nurses told me about Phoenix Animal Rescue, telling me a number of breeders who have puppies that don't sell send them there.  So, when I got home, I checked out their website.  There were a number of puppies there, but there was also an 8 year-old female Boxer, and I suddenly felt so sad.  That's a terrible age to be rescued.  For Boxers, that's the age the medical problems start showing up.  I feel terrible that has to happen to that little lady.

And for those who have long term memory failure, Republican presidents always leave the economy in a mess.  Which of the 3 Republican presidents on this list passed Trickle Down Economic packages that failed?

I'll give you a hint.  George H. Bush was not one of them, though he inherited an economy that was a shambles because Trickle Down was failing so badly.  Giving tax breaks to wealthy individuals and corporations will never be successful at stabilizing the economy because those people and groups are only interested in their own bottom line.  At the first sign of a problem they beginning cutting their expenses (mostly payroll expense) to save their bottom line.  Of course, they're still getting those tax breaks.  The only president on this list who actually took away those breaks away from corporations was George H. Bush and it cost him his bid for re-election.  At a campaign rally while running for his first term, he infamously made the comment, "read my lips, no new taxes."  Of course, the economy left to him by Ronald Reagan was in such a shambles, Bush desperately tried everything.  The bottom line?  Never trust a Republican with the economy.

Clueless in Mechanicsburg

Yesterday, as I was working the paint desk, a young man came up (early twenties) with a quart can of Gel Stain and asked if we carried the product in gallon cans.  I told him we don't since it's mostly used for smaller projects.  He turned and left and I followed him to see if I could provide further assistance.  He joined a woman about his age and an older one, who seemed to be her mother, and told them it only came in quarts.  I asked what their project was and the young woman said they were going to be staining her hardwood floors.  Since I, myself, have actually refinished the hardwood floors in my house I started to talk to them and... the mother shut me down.  "I've done this before, I know what I'm doing," she said.  I wanted to ask her if she knew most people used Gel Stain for fiberglass and steel doors since it's too thick to run, but didn't.  I did bring up the process of sanding down the floors and... got shot down again.  However, I did learn that the young woman was planning on doing 4 rooms, and that they had just finished tearing up the carpet.

Too thick too run

And they were there to buy stain?  I was allowed to bring up the subject of finishes, briefly.  Most people put down a couple coats of polyurethane on freshly stained hardwood floors, and polys have an amber tint.  And the older woman said, "it's not going to make any difference, she's wants a dark stain."  And I knew she had no idea what she was talking about.  Perhaps she'd seen a show on HGTV, or read something, somewhere, or had maybe even paid someone to do one of the floors in her home.  But she knew absolutely nothing about floor refinishing.  When they left the department to go check out, all they had in their cart were 3 gallons of Dark Walnut stain, and 5 cheap chip brushes that are virtually useless because they shed so much.  There is a good possibility that stain will end up being returned because the only thing that woman was an authority on, was being clueless in Mechanicsburg.

This is what I see

Had you said to me 5 years ago that at this point in my life I would be a Sultan of Shades and a Maven of Hues I would have laughed.  Of course, none of us truly know what our future holds no matter how detailed a plan we make.  Managing a paint department would was not something I ever would have considered doing.  Yet this is what I do.  And, this is what I see, a lot.

And, I now can say that I know color.  

So, when  customer comes up to the paint desk with a garbage bag of empty cans I know my expertise is about to get a work out.  He had a total of 4 empty cans altogether, one had traces of a gray semi-transparent stain and one traces of a Williamsburg Blue semi-transparent stain. He had two can lids, one with traces of gray which was dated 2014, the other had been wiped clean which was dated 2009.  He claimed that they had just put the 3 cans of blue stain on the deck, needed more, came in for the fourth and were given gray instead of blue.  When I pointed out that the one lid was dated 2009.  He gave me this little song and dance about how, after they bought the stain, the clerk had told them not to put it on the deck for at least a year... and the next year he was too busy... and the next year his father, mother, and brother had all died, so he didn't do anything that year.  When I pointed out that the tints used on the 2009 lid were for a slate gray not a Williamsburg Blue he became irate and demanded to see the store manager.  So, I called the store manager.

This is what I see... a lot.

When the store manager asked him why he put down the slate gray stain when all of the other cans were blue he said, "I thought it would go blue."  Right.  In the end I mixed this customer 3 more gallons of the slate gray so he could "cover up" the Williamsburg Blue.  Of course, that gray is not going to cover up the blue, if there actually is blue stain on the deck.  This customer was so full of horse shit.  This is why your costs go up.

This is what I see, every day.