make that "Drive BY Paint". This place taught me this lesson: "If a place can't do routine work consistently well, reconsider your options. If it can't own up to its own mistake, avoid it for a million reasons."
My wife, who I knew since we were young teens, died last year in late December in home hospice. When you have known someone going on half a century they tend to become special, one way or the other, and this was the best kind of special, a good special I hardly deserved. I have many ways of commemorating her, often by doing things she would have liked. So I decided to paint the room she died in her favorite colors, and to do that every year on the anniversary of her death. By now, you might think I know those colors by heart, wouldn't you? You'd be right. I know them right by my heart. I would have gone to my nearby Benjamin Moore store but a friend of mine dangled the lure of getting a ride and accompanying him to see the display of Century Paint. I spent about two hours in this store walking out with gallons of century paint @$120/gallon, plus the special tools it requires, and more, and all-in-all dropped about $600. I was zero interruption, burden or inconvenience until, heavily loaded as I was I approached the three fellows behind the counter, interrupting to obvious irritation the animated, humorous deep conversation among themselves. The store was pretty empty. I asked if they could mix me my main goal of the trip, a gallon of Woad, my wife's fav of fav's, and if I might shop for another 20 minutes. "Sure." When I returned, i got an 'all set' from the bearded gent who had done or supervised the mixing, bought and left. Approaching the anniversary, I thought I'd get an early start, and think alot, and grieve and remember and wish she were back and all that sort of thing then I opened the can and saw an unusual bright light blue, almost exactly the color I would use if I were painting the lower half of the wall of an old fashioned state mental hospital, therapeutic no doubt but not right for doing something she would have liked or felt necessary. I won't name the paint for fear of offense and revealing how flawed my tastes. But I will state that while Woad is one syllable this has multiple. The only thing the two names have in common is that one derives from one of the celtic lands, and woad derives from another, being the tattoo color of choice for my ancestors, the naked pictish warriors. So I called up and got out a half sentence when a voice cut me off "with no returns of custom colors". "But..." I said. "It is a custom color right?" "Well its definitely not pure white," said I. "No returns on custom colors." "Its not my custom color, its yours," I said. "If you don't want this back Ill find some unstable person to give it to, its unused not a drop gone but I need the color I ordered." "No returns." I sympathize with not wanting to be victimized by dishonest cheapskates who paint some, change their minds, and try to exchange. But I know that's not all of us. If the company wants to eliminate the first, power to them, but that makes them responsible to tell the difference. But they make more by punishing the innocent. "Ah but didnt I have notice via a sign that says no returns?" No, not full notice. Full notice would be, "No returns even if its our fault. p.s. You cant rely on us to mix your paint correctly. Benjamin Moore has outgrown reliability. p.p.s. When we say 'sure' and 'you're set' we dont mean it." I have three more objections. Theyve made themselves unaccountable for their mistakes. Everything about that is bad. Customers suffer. Brand suffers. Employee morale drops because the bad and good ones are indistinguishable. Second, this isn't about returns, thats their gig. Its plain old breach of contract. I paid, now you deliver what I asked for and you said you would. And here's the last one, as I just learned every product sold for consumer use in the Commonwealth has a warranty of fitness and merchantability. Its got to be what they say it is, and good for what normal use its bought for and of merchantable type. A store called Wrong Color 4 You wont sell much. Selling the wrong color isnt a merchantable type. And its unfit for its intended purpose. I dont know what I'll do with these thoughts but I am starting here. My wife's almost-last words were "dont let go," and while she was speaking of our joined hands for once she's not around to correct me if I choose to misinterpret it. So yes, my beloved, I will not let go. We can tell right from wrong. A good merchant uses methods that do so too. People and right may not beat greed, but they can try. Lincoln was more optimistic: "Let us have faith that Right makes Might and in that faith dare to do our duty." Ah a friend just suggested a call to the Attorney General's office, well thought of. As my Mom used to say, "If you dont do it, who will." read more