The hardware store is full of very desperate people ten minutes before closing, on the eve of a holiday. We were two of them, courtesy of the geyser residing in the kitchen from the attempts at installing the New To Us Espresso Machine.  Appliance installation never goes well for us. Our history of dishwasher installation, washing machine installation, and any sort of plumbing repair never ends in happiness or pleasant words.  We had a dishwasher in Point Robert's that never fit quite right, and there is no way that you can sweet talk a repair man into driving through two border crossings to help you out. There was a bathroom sink explosion in the middle of one of Nathan's Turn Around night shift stints. On the eve of our wedding, a washing machine flooded our duplex with a foot of sudsy water. 

These sort of things just come to us like flies to tacky fly paper. So being at the hardware store for the third time last night, and staying until fifteen minutes after they were officially closed, was really nothing unexpected. We were in good company too. When we first walked in there were two men that definitely had it worse than us. They were holding a very large table leg. We saw them again as we were leaving. They had left the store and were already back again, their problem unsolved and begging to be let back in, gigantic table leg in hand. On the eve of Thanksgiving, that can't have been a good thing.