There is something about a hardware store that turns men into totally different human beings. Unlike anything the normal person would notice unless they worked in a hardware store and witnessed it for themselves. When I first notice men coming into the outer doors of the store, they look like anybody else walking down the street. But as soon as they reach the inner doors, the smell of the power tools, hammers, paint and automotive parts reach their senses and goes to another level of their brain.
             All those T.V. shows start playing in their heads, like the reruns of "This Old House" with Bob Villa, the get brainwashed into thinking they can accomplish anything, so long as the have that perfect drill or circular saw. You can see their chest expand almost as if they were being pumped with testosterone and it is seeping out of their pores. Their eyes get so wide you would think that they had just been given the world and didn't have a clue what to do with it. It looks as they are kids in a candy store, and given carte blanche for whatever they wanted.
             Roaming up and down the aisles gaping at it all, trying to figure out what to buy. I would watch the do-it-yourselfer fill his cart with all that he needed to accomplish his tasks at home. Nuts and bolts are often forgotten. I have seen the same man return five or six times in one day to purchase forgotten items to finish the whole project.
             I almost feel as though I should have them over for a cookout after work because I have gotten to know them as if they were family. "So Tom, why don't you and Michelle come over tonight? We'll have hamburgers and talk about how your home improvement job is going."
             Of course Michelle is always there to reassure and support her wonderful husband, Tom, in all his adventures in home repair. Her house is beginning to look similar to an annex of my hardware store. The table and miter saws were set up in the k
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