I’m going to struggle with this one….
Its been 3 days since it all went down and I am still having uncontrolled fits of laughter, rolling my eyes and am still piling on the sarcasm and ridicule….
I’m cutting a hole in the back of the kitchen bench to reclaim some lost space (blog and photos soon). Once the hole is cut, you have to line it and make it Freddy visually approved.
So I carefully measured the wood that was in there, I even went to extra effort to make sure I measured it in inches!
The kitchen cupboard was using a lot of this 3 and 3/4 x 1 and 1/4 wood. A lot of it.
So off to our local Home Depo. (Think Bunnings)
We found the draw runners we wanted, the wood to make the floor and back out of and so on.
Last thing to grab was some of the same sized wood that we needed for the bracing.
I walked the full length of the wood section THREE times reading all the labels for the piles of wood that sort of looked close.
Not one of one them matched the sizes I was looking for.
I’m getting all grumpy because I’m thinking that I’m going to have to buy a bigger bit of wood and cut it down and my mind is getting out of sorts because I cant believe that the guys that built my kitchen did the same thing.
I catch up with Freddy and start complaining… she asks me if I have measured any of the wood piles. I tell her no, there is no point, the label clearly shows the wood size and they are not the size I need.
I need three and three quarters by one and a quarter. I measured it. I know what I need.
Yeah, she presses, but have you measured it… labels can be wrong she insists…. I counter with, the place has been selling lumber for years, they would not have the wrong labels on any of the wood…..
So, as this little domestic unravels in the isles of the hardware shop, one of the sales guys comes up and offers to help.
I give him my lament about how my kitchen has a stack of this three and a bit by one and a bit wood it in and they don’t sell it…..
I have no idea how, but he keeps a perfectly straight face and proceeds to tell me that “in America a 4 x 2 actually measures three and a bit by one and a bit”.
I thank him for his time and manage to keep a straight face just long enough for him to walk off and disappear….. Half a second latter, I totally lost it.
In what country do you happily pay and then get less than what you see on the label?
Its like buying a 1 liter drink and getting 3/4 of a liter, and being perfectly happy about it.
How in the world can you build anything were the material is smaller in size than the written measurements?
I will spare you from the rest of the analogies that ensured… enough to say they… well… never mind……
I’m sitting here, three days latter, finding my self laughing deliriously. Its still nuts, totally crazy…..
Need a bit of wood that’s 3 and a bit by one and a bit, oh no, what you really need is a 4 by 2…. yeah, of course I do…..
Silly me. Should have measured the wood my self and complained their sign was wrong.
