The weather has turned nasty again, with intermittent showers and lots of coldness. I think we're both looking forward to returning home to summer.
I borrowed Brian's umbrella for the walk to Franconia Springfield Metro Station and took what I thought was the Metro into King Street, but it turned out to be only a shuttle between Franconia Springfield and the next stop down the line, Van Dorn Street. Once we got there all passengers were off loaded at the station to wait for a train to take us to King Street and beyond, while the shuttle returned to Franconia Springfield. I think everyone was bemused at this unusual treatment, but there was no explanation from the Metro employees who were milling around the station.
Anyway, we all complied and I finally arrived at King Street where I waited (again) for the free trolley bus to take us to the other end of King Street. While I waited, I was obliged to listen to a vacuous blond talking loudly to a compliant accomplice, who absorbed all the drivel without responding. As we saw the trolley bus approaching (it was probably 10 minutes late), this person decided to make a phone call and I heard the part of her conversation when she said "...the trolley is like, crazy late....".
So, recovering from all that I met Leanne at her workplace and proceeded to Lowes in Alexandria (along Route 1), to see if we could buy an outside garden shed and then squeeze it into her car. The dimensions of this shed are around 4.5' x 6'5' x 3' so it wasn't too big but we expected to have to de-wrap it and feed the pieces in individually. We had seen this item on the web initially at a price of $299 and then discounted at Lowes, to $259. However last night when I looked it up on the Lowes website, the price had risen back $299. Nonetheless I thought we could feign surprise at the high price and see if we could get the original discount. And so it came to pass !
We found a heavy duty trolley which seemed to have the "jumps" and loaded this shed onto it. At the exit from the gardening area, we had the bad luck to find two uncooperative staff who couldn't or wouldn't check the lower price and referred us inside to customer service. The folk at Customer Service however, couldn't have been more helpful. They were absolutely disinterested in checking our story and happily gave us the garden shed at the discounted price. I thanked them more than once.
We did have to unpack the shed from its cardboard, but the bare essentials fitted into Leanne's car, though the passenger's seat is quite cramped when pushed fully forward.
We'll erect it tomorrow.
