Noodad: noodad » Home Depot (or Lowe’s) Fun and Games
Harry
· 1 year ago
I recommend saving the paint sample cards as your "reward" for a great trip out. This always bought us a couple extra aisles at the Depot. "If you don't get back here now, there won't be any Mickey cards at the end!". It's impressive what a little one will do for three lousy Mickey Mouse paint sample cards. I also recommend doing a clean sweep of those things every now and then through your house. They add up very quickly!
wahoodad
· 1 year ago
Home Depot might provide some educational fun, but you better be careful with kids in that place. It is hands down one of the most dangerous places you can bring your kid shopping. From home handymen wheeling around blind corners with heavy metal carts loaded up with anything from cinder blocks to 12 foot pressure treated 2' x 12' boards, to the sometimes careless Jenga-like towers of such things as generators or crates of porcelain tile stacked on the top shelves overhead; injuries in this place, when they happen, can be severe.
'Wahoodad, you over-protective pussy!' you may be thinking. Not so fast. I'm talking about Home Depot in particular because I know people whose quick trip to the garden center for some new shrubs ended with their daughter going to the hospital--and ultimately having plastic surgery--when a wheelbarrow fell from the top shelf and hit her in the face. Fortunately it was a glancing blow and didn't hit her square on the top of her head, or she'd likely be dead.
I also worked with a college-aged kid who took a job at Home Depot. They showed him how to use a forklift for ten minutes out in the back of the store on his second day, and within the hour he was loading things inside the store. He said this kind of 'training' was routine as far as he experienced. He was the first one to tell me--even before I had kids-that he'd never take a kid in there.
'Bull,' you say. 'Isolated incidents.' Not exactly. Before I became a stay-at-home dad I worked in the insurance industry. Home Depot's loss runs for several years came across my desk as part of a proposal. Based on the number of stores and the number of employees, I wasn't surprised at the number of losses--but the severity of the losses and the descriptions of the incidents were absolutely frightening.
All that being said, I'm in Home Depot with kids as much as three times a week. When I'm there, though, I am hyper-vigilant. My kids stay in the cart at all times. I look up at the shelving as I walk down the aisles and I'll take a different route if I see anything that looks a little off-balance or precarious on the upper shelves.
I don't recommend avoiding Home Depot, and I agree that your kid can learn and have fun while you're there; but be a little more cautious and aware if you're in there with your kids. While I don't have any first hand knowledge of incidents at Lowe's, I treat a trip there the same way.
TheBabblingHousewife
· 1 year ago
wahoodad - party pooper
DavidReynolds
· 1 year ago
WahooDad's cautionary tales are to be noted but I gotta think he's catastrophizing... I see parents and kids rolling out of my Depot every time I go and none of them are bloodied and bandaged. And I go a lot. Obviously you need to be careful with your kids...probably a bit more at a place like The Depot more than say, Sears but isn't that freakin' obvious?! My recommendation - the Doors department. That's loads of fun. Nice post!
wahoodad
· 1 year ago
To TheBabblingHousewife
As far as me being a party pooper, guilty as charged (at times).
To DavidReynolds
Yes, I'm illustrating a worst-case scenario here, but it's based on facts. I never said that I saw parents and kids bloodied and bandaged coming out of HD on a regular basis AND I said that I go there as many as three times a week.
Being more careful with your kids at Home Depot than at other stores may seem to you "freakin' obvious"; but I've seen kids using the lower lumber racks as forts while dad checks out fence posts, older kids taking advantage of the smooth cement floors on their Heelys (despite the big sign when you walk in that says "NO HEELYS"), and toddlers reaching into cartons of metal new-work electrical boxes. So, I don't think there's any harm in suggesting that people pay a little more attention when they are in a store that has a reputation for being hazardous to customers. Just check out this article, one of the many I found after Googling "Home Depot accidents":
Yes, the article is 5 years old, but I haven't noticed any drastic changes at any of the several different Home Depots I've been in over the past ten years.
Again, I go to Home Depot a lot with my boys. Just a few weeks ago we spent almost two hours there selecting some flooring, and we did the whole petting zoo carpet sample thing with our 2 1/2 year old. I'm not avoiding the place even though I know it is dangerous. I also read "Fast Food Nation" and still go to McDonalds, Burger King, etc. Just as I limit my kids' exposure to fast food, I don't feel like limiting their time in what's been called "the most dangerous store in America" based on injuries to customers is such a bad thing.
reviewdad
· 1 year ago
Wahoodad makes a very good point (actually, several...) about safety and the safety mindset you need to have when taking your brood to The Depot. To paraphrase 80s band Roxette, "Hold on tight, you know [it]'s a little bit dangerous."
All Comments
'Wahoodad, you over-protective pussy!' you may be thinking. Not so fast. I'm talking about Home Depot in particular because I know people whose quick trip to the garden center for some new shrubs ended with their daughter going to the hospital--and ultimately having plastic surgery--when a wheelbarrow fell from the top shelf and hit her in the face. Fortunately it was a glancing blow and didn't hit her square on the top of her head, or she'd likely be dead.
I also worked with a college-aged kid who took a job at Home Depot. They showed him how to use a forklift for ten minutes out in the back of the store on his second day, and within the hour he was loading things inside the store. He said this kind of 'training' was routine as far as he experienced. He was the first one to tell me--even before I had kids-that he'd never take a kid in there.
'Bull,' you say. 'Isolated incidents.' Not exactly. Before I became a stay-at-home dad I worked in the insurance industry. Home Depot's loss runs for several years came across my desk as part of a proposal. Based on the number of stores and the number of employees, I wasn't surprised at the number of losses--but the severity of the losses and the descriptions of the incidents were absolutely frightening.
All that being said, I'm in Home Depot with kids as much as three times a week. When I'm there, though, I am hyper-vigilant. My kids stay in the cart at all times. I look up at the shelving as I walk down the aisles and I'll take a different route if I see anything that looks a little off-balance or precarious on the upper shelves.
I don't recommend avoiding Home Depot, and I agree that your kid can learn and have fun while you're there; but be a little more cautious and aware if you're in there with your kids. While I don't have any first hand knowledge of incidents at Lowe's, I treat a trip there the same way.
As far as me being a party pooper, guilty as charged (at times).
To DavidReynolds
Yes, I'm illustrating a worst-case scenario here, but it's based on facts. I never said that I saw parents and kids bloodied and bandaged coming out of HD on a regular basis AND I said that I go there as many as three times a week.
Being more careful with your kids at Home Depot than at other stores may seem to you "freakin' obvious"; but I've seen kids using the lower lumber racks as forts while dad checks out fence posts, older kids taking advantage of the smooth cement floors on their Heelys (despite the big sign when you walk in that says "NO HEELYS"), and toddlers reaching into cartons of metal new-work electrical boxes. So, I don't think there's any harm in suggesting that people pay a little more attention when they are in a store that has a reputation for being hazardous to customers. Just check out this article, one of the many I found after Googling "Home Depot accidents":
http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/stories/2003...
Yes, the article is 5 years old, but I haven't noticed any drastic changes at any of the several different Home Depots I've been in over the past ten years.
Again, I go to Home Depot a lot with my boys. Just a few weeks ago we spent almost two hours there selecting some flooring, and we did the whole petting zoo carpet sample thing with our 2 1/2 year old. I'm not avoiding the place even though I know it is dangerous. I also read "Fast Food Nation" and still go to McDonalds, Burger King, etc. Just as I limit my kids' exposure to fast food, I don't feel like limiting their time in what's been called "the most dangerous store in America" based on injuries to customers is such a bad thing.