...is sometimes better.
My local Ace Hardware store is great. It’s a 5-minute walk from our house, so I love zipping over there to grab the next washer I need to finish that home repair project.
They sharpen scissors! (Actually, they send them out somewhere to get the deed done.) Try getting that done at your big box DIY store.
I was amused that two hand-filled-in tags were attached to my scissors when I picked them up. Maybe not the paragon of efficiency — but they got the job done.
There is a Sharpening Shop on Main Street in Duncanville. I’ve never taken scissors, but I had them sharpen the scythe we gave Jephthah for Christmas, and one or two other things over the years.
I miss having DeFord’s up on Duncanville Rd. It was nice having people you could actually talk to. Elliot’s is great, but they’re way up in Dallas and Plano. They carry oddball stuff that HD doesn’t. I hate the bulk-sale mentality of the warehouse stores... things you need once every ten years get dropped from their stock because they don’t sell enough.
But I do appreciate low prices. However, once the smaller stores are gone, the warehouses control prices. Walmart has jacked a lot of prices up in the past couple of years, and dropped a lot of their really inexpensive lines (like $1 shampoo).
Good points, Tim.
There are always trade-offs in the big vs. small changes. I’ll choose small when it’s not inconvenient and when there is not too much or a price penalty. (My ideology only goes so far...)
We have an ACE Hardware in our neighborhood and it’s always the place to find weird old hardware (like the grommets that you use to tie up window blind cords) and odd sized florescent light tubes (to fit into 60-year-old light fixtures). They cut glass while you wait and make keys while you wait. And amazingly, it’s a much smaller store that your average Home Depot and much easier to get an employee to help you. I love ACE!
Seth Godin’s got a post that’s pretty hard on “jobs” (http://goo.gl/ocRN). Your post points out what he might be missing — there are things that real people, in the real world, will always have to do. Thank goodness that lots of folks can still see the value in that.