Pluggers by Rick McKee for August 28, 2013

Or eBay!

You’re a plugger if you can remember shopping in real hardware stores, not those big box home improvement stores. .If those old stores are still around, they probably have that discontinued part, somewhere in the back.

Must have Made in USA on it.

Must have Made in USA on it.

We have the big box stores with the cheap stuff if you live in a McMansion. We also have the old lumber yards that have straight studs for a straight wall and still have a supplier that they bought parts from and sold to the contractor that built your home back when.

Buy another house of the same make and model and discard the parts you don’t want!

what, I can’t get installation brackets for my eight track player?

If you still have one in town, you are fortunate indeed. Since this area of NOVA was absorbed into the DC suburbs and the big box guys moved in most of the close by local hardware stores are gone.There are a few left, but none close enough to justify driving through clogged traffic to get to them. We do most of our ‘discontinued part’ shopping online now.But we sure miss those old hardware stores and the feed ’ngrain stores with their bins of nails and seeds sold by the scoop.

We have two “small town” hardware stores in my town.Lucky us! But thank goodness for the internet for the realhard to find stuff!

I used to drive hardware store help nuts back in my ‘inventing days’… I’d describe a part or bracket or mount of coil form I needed……they’d wrinkle their brow and ask me just what was I trying to build? and I’d tell them that it was for a government project and I couldn’t reveal that.. Fun times..

Depends on the hardware store. We have one in our town that still sells stuff singly (not in blister packs) and useful for doing home repairs on homes built in the 50’s (or older).

My Dad does this all the time sometimes I think he still believes it is 1978.

Now where is my Belknap catalogue?

You’re truly a plugger if you made it run 35+ years without needing the replacement part!

I have that to happen all the time. I want something only be be told it was discontinued. The sad part is I am only 48.

We’ve had a local hardware store about a mile from my house that has lasted for decades because they offer personalized service. It is quite popular in the community.