Lowes Home Improvement Warehouse. The quintessential “Man’s Store”. Not saying that there aren’t plenty of women that shop at Lowes – there certainly are. But it just doesn’t seem like the women in the store have that same gleam in their eye. That little sparkle that all of the men have as they wander aimlessly down the aisles. Like a kid in a candy store. That “Wow – look at THIS! And THAT! Would you look at THAT!!!”
You might think that this is a “learned” behavior. I do it because I saw my dad do it and he saw his dad do it. And so on and so on. Throughout the history of hardware stores.
But I’m here to tell you that this behavior is at least partially genetic. And here is why I think so…
A couple of weekends ago we took Mike to Lowes. It wasn’t his first trip – but at 18 months, it was the first time he’s been since he’s been “aware” of his environment. We walked in the front door to be greeted by several shiny lawn tractors.
“Tractor! Tractor!” he announced and took off running. Not once did he ever turn around to see that “twinkle” in his dad’s eye. At that point – he didn’t even care if his dad had eyes! He was 100% on his own…
“That’s right Mike! And how does a tractor sound?”
“blub-blub-blub-blub-blub”
We spent the next 45 minutes investigating every last feature of every last lawn tractor. Tested every seat. Kicked every tire. Inspected each mowing deck. Yanked on every steering wheel. Mike pointed out every color – “green” and “yellow” (obviously for the John Deer’s), “red” (those were the Toro’s)…
And on it went until it was finally time to walk the next 20 yards in to the store (are those grills I see up ahead?). Before we left, I asked Mike which one was is favorite. Without hesitation, he immediately walked up to the Husqvarna and excitedly announced “Orange!”.
That’s my boy! You can take him out of East Tennessee – but he’ll always be a Vol…
“You guys never told me that Lowes would be SO MUCH FUN!”
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