My Robot Is Pregnant theme song!

Discount Builders is the biggest hardware store in San Francisco. It’s right downtown too, so it stays busy. They have lumber there, pallets of of 2 by, stacks of sheetrock up to the ceiling and grizzled old guys with bodies too busted to function in the field run fork trucks and recommend adhesives. It’s not a little Ace with lightbulbs and watering cans and some sandpaper. Discount offers chop saws with a giant 12 inch blade, Bosch hammer drills, lo-flo toilets, Black Jack roofing tar, wooden towel rods, plastic ornamental columns – enough stuff on hand to build a bungalow and a little carport.

I say this so you understand the typical shopper. Short stout Mexican’s with hoodies smeared in drywall mud, a clean shaven white guy with razor sunglasses on a nylon cord around his neck, long haired original hippies who probably shouldn’t still be working but their joints will sieze up if they don’t keep moving, you’ll hear Irish and Russian and Black accents, see tattoos and limps, notice missing fingers and giant biceps, smell whiskey and b.o. I’m starting to picture a prison yard. With tools.

Then once in a while an art student comes in. Boy or girl, you can pick ‘em out like corn in doo doo. They need some bolts for their mobile or plywood for an installation. They have asymetrical hair cuts and slim waistlines. Unnatural colors in their hair. You might see a beautiful couple pedal up on two old Schwinns, one with a basket tied to the bars. The tradesmen look at them as they head in the giant double doors. What does a tradesman think of an art school student? I know I think to myself, “Wouldn’t it be nice.” Others are probably glad to see a femal form. An exotic member of society, these art school girls. What other chance does a guy from Michuacuan or Daly City get to offer advice to an 18 year old New Media Studies major from Berlin?

The only other women in the place are cashiers. Women are almost always cashiers at hardware stores. At Discount it’s a collection of older ladies from foreign countries. I wouldn’t hazard a guess as to how many and which ones. I like the near dwarf Asian woman with a high pitched and crackling voice. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” she is always saying, as she tries to find the bar code on a sixty pound bag of cement, very nearly her own body weight, and you try to move it for her but she doesn’t need your help.

One of the icons of DB is the old white guy in uniform that polices the parking lot. He wears black shoes with incredibly thick soles, a security guard’s costume and a matching blue ball cap with some shield embroidered on. He walks around with a stick in his hand, and at one end of the stick is a piece of chalk. He marks tires and times customers.

There is something wrong with the guys neck, he constantly describes small circles with his head like he’s working out a kink. The only time this revolution ceases is when he tries to help someone back up. Then his hands pick up the motion, but more franticly. Like he wants to get back to spinning his head in circles. Can’t wait for it. But for now the incessant gear drops down to his hands and he seems to be miming the action of an random-orbit sander.

Anyone who’s been here twice ignores his help.