One of the Reasons We are Doomed

By ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ

Recently Mrs Leonidas and I acquired a small travel trailer we have named “Rocinante.”  When school is out and we no longer need to transport the grandchildren to and from school, we will be doing our yearly  transcontinental trip by camping along the route. Since we lived for many years aboard a 34’ sailboat there should be little problem adapting to the confined (and spartan) accommodations. As a result, we have been packing and performing minor modifications and upgrades on Rocinante.

During the course of these activities there was occasion to journey to the local Home Depot to obtain a replacement window shade.  The shade is required to be an odd size therefore it was necessary to modify a standard sized one to fit. This should have been no problem for the personnel of Home Depot as they are equipped with a special but simple lathe-like machine in order to accomplish the task.

The Home Depot employee, a pleasant African American young woman advised that she lacked the training necessary to operate the machine but would summon a supervisor to assist us. While awaiting the arrival of the supervisor I examined the machine and found it to be in fact a very simple but specialized lathe which in a former life during my youth I had operated during the course of my employment in a machine shop.

After 15 minutes of awaiting the arrival of the African American supervisor she in fact arrived accompanied by 2 other women; another young black woman and a Hispanic girl. The supervisor stated that she “hoped to remember how to” operate the machine. The 4 women collectively proceeded to attempt to accomplish the task and after 25 minutes succeeded; in the process causing minor damage to the window shade.

During this entire operation I was tempted to instruct these ladies how to accomplish the task but was dissuaded from doing so by Mrs Leonidas. In retrospect I realize that the Mrs was correct. I, being a white male would have been perceived as exercising “white male patriarchy.”

We departed the Home Depot realizing that the incompetent staff would be almost impossible  to fire and extremely difficult to train due to possessing virtually no mechanical aptitude.

Fortunately, being of an older generation and on an elastic schedule our only inconvenience was having to remain standing erect for the better part of an hour with somewhat painfully deteriorated spinal columns.

Heaven help a society having to suffer incompetence and affirmative action.