I went into Dansteel, a Trinidad and Tobago attempt at a sort of 'Home Depot' which is pretty useful, and headed into the gardening section. I was on a search for a hoe so that I could clear lines for more lines of corn. And so I stood there in the petite aisle of all manner of shovels, pitchforks, gullets and so forth.

But there were no hoes. There were hoe handles, but no hoes. A lady who works in Dansteel shows up and I ask her, "Do you happen to have any hoes laying around?"

She looks at me incredulously and says that they don't do that sort of thing in Dansteel. I wave my hand around me, in the gardening area, and say, 'hoes'. She repeats herself, insinuating that Dansteel is a family hardware and not something that one would find down by the sea wharf. Again, I repeat and mime the use of the item... 'Hoes. Garden hoes.'

Thankfully she didn't think I was talking about garden hose.

So after dressing me down for not saying 'garden hoes' in the first place, she finally tells me that they do not have any and do not know when they will get them. I smirk. How she came up with the alternative definition of 'hoes' was somewhat funny, but I left it at that. Her 2 minute tirade on the appropriate use of the word 'hoes' left me in good humor, though she did seem to be speaking with some self-inflicted authority that doesn't apply to the rest of the world.

I wander off, looking at the shelving. I turn when I hear the same 'hoe' voice nearby, asking another employee if they had plastic drawers in the area.

Walking over and feigning a look of concern, I ask her if she's leaking.