Bacher or Backer?

Note: I posted this on January 21st, but I had previously uploaded some of the photos, so it retained that date- February 15th. I apologize for the inconvenience.


About 10 days ago, me and my dad went by a Lowe's. I found out that I despise Lowe's; the layout of the store just makes my barn owl catch a mouse. The paint section makes me sick, and so does the GIGANTIC HEATER section. Hello, uh, we're Arizona- we don't need heaters, we obviously need anti-moron sticks to get the morons who decided gigantic heaters should be sold in Lowe's out of our state and into Wisconsin where they can sell air conditioners. It's like trying to sell oil to Saudi Arabia. For high prices.

Speaking of anti...guess what we saw the other day? None other than a tailgating deterrent device which I think would really work great if implemented en-mass. See the photographs, below.

Whoo! Tailgating would come with a chance to shear off 90% of your front end. Wouldn't that be a much better world? WHAM, you crash into the person in front of you, and your engine block falls out. My vision of a perfect world..."You sunk my engine block!"



Anyway, you know who Orville Redenbacher is, right? He makes popcorn? I think he's dead? He's old? He even was old when he was young? He was the only baby ever born with gray hair? He looked really old when he was old? He made being old not just a normative life process, but an art? Something that young people attempted and aspired to?

Well, there's a young Redenbacher enthusiast working at Lowe's, apparently. You know those infuriating checklists above any project? It says stuff like, you need a cannon saw (whatever?), and a resendicating mortar shell-vapor expulsion drill, and some Plyer's warfnitinaling ("the process of fastening") FastSet Ultra Glue, and a Steady Hand reversible Insothalinothronopic Philip and Flathead screwdrivers, and always safety glasses, ear plugs, gloves and hardhat? Bleg. Well, if you don't know what those lists are, here's one, pictured below.

Notice anything strange? I did. What on earth is...bacherboard?

If your eyes are bad, here's a closeup.

Grr. Why would they call it Bacherboard? Then it would be pronounced, "Bih-carr-bored." That's horrendously difficult to pronounce. It's so difficult to pronounce, you'd have to denounce it, and no one would buy it.

So, I set out to do some investigating. I didn't have to go far before I found this advertising sign.

Aha! Not only is BACKERboard very expensive at Lowe's, it's also called BACKER, with a C and a K! Victory is mine! About then- as I had my arms raised and was in the middle of a guttural cry of victory- my dad got back from the bathroom. "Kev," he asked. He always starts with "Kev." Everyone tends to start with "Kev."

"Did you look for the tile?"

"Uh, no," I began as I slowly lowered by arms. "See, they misspelled Hardibacker and used CH. I don't think there's any beet free sugar there, so um, I did some investigating, and found an advertisement which should be more accurate than a hastily assembled list, and that's what I've been doing for the last 5 minutes instead of looking for the tile like you asked me to."

"Kev...we now have a living example of why God wrote his word down, and didn't just speak it. Let's find the tile." "OK, pa." A few minutes passed. "You know, like Redenbacher. He made popcorn...did he invent hardibacker, too, dad?"

"No, Kev...he didn't invent hardibacker. It was invented by Sir Hardi the Back of Errfield, OK, now let's find the tile." "OK."

About that time, an employee, by chance, happened upon us, then started telling us about how his wife left him and he has been showing up to work late lately and with a hangover and his boss wants to fire him. "I just need something to...save me, out of this horrific trap I'm in!" he hastily spat. "If only someone had some good news for my dreary dark world!" he cried.

There was a pause, the man's face frozen in a shocked expression of desperate need, his hands and arms in a weird position, his mouth agape.



"Listen, buddy, you're not paid to hobble around and then jump customers and whine your life's story out to them. Get lost, before I make SURE you're fired!" my dad said. The guy started shaking-possibly sobbing- then walked away.

After we got our stuff, we decided to go to lunch. But the restaurants were full up, so we decided to go read our Bible on a busy street corner.



(Please, God, tell me someone gets the humor in this. May they look at Matthew 6:2 and 6:5, and also realize that there was no man in Lowe's who said anything like that!)