What Adrienne Thinks About That

I really hate to see independent retailers of any kind go out of business. My father taught me this, and it actually has a bit of an ironic twist with recent events. There used to be Vick's hardware in Kendall. We would run a tab there and pay it each month. It was great to have a spot that close by where you could get things you needed for our farm and home projects and didn't have to make the hour round-trip to Chase-Pitkins in Brockport. Every now and then Dad would have to buy a big item like a chain saw or a sump pump. I remembered that Chase Pitkins had the same things for about 15% less and mentioned it to him. Dad told me "If you don't occasionally buy a bigger ticket item at Vick's, then they won't be there when you just need a couple bolts one day." That was the intellectual part of the argument, the unspoken one was that the Vicks lived down the street from us and had a mortgage and car payments like everyone else, you could see your money going back into your own community, keeping a family afloat. Of course now the irony is that Chase-Pitkins is now the 'local' hardware retailer going out of business, undercut by Home Depot and Lowe's. Where will the closest hardware store to Kendall be when Chase-Pitkens closes? Greece? Batavia? Probably Albion, but really, why would you go to Albion? Another irony is that a seemingly successful independent toy store is open in Kendall (well, the Kendall School District, it's actually in Holley). So now it's easier to get a Thomas train in Kendall than a mower belt.

Chuck's totally right about that. It's really sad to see these stores go out of business. On the other hand, I believe wholeheartedly in providing quality service. There's a certain convenient store in town that for a long while had basically incompetent people working at it. The final straw for me was waiting in line in my wedding gown for nearly 30 minutes trying to get a sub while some chick carried on a full conversation with the only other person in the store (an employee).

From my perspective, I fully believe in supporting the little guy as long as the little guy is committed to the same standards you can expect from the big guy. I don't mind paying a little extra (when I can) or waiting a little longer to get something (when I can) if I can contribute some to the local economy. I prefer it.

Which brings me back to my thoughts about Wegmans. I realize Jeffrey is MIA at the moment, but I’d still really like to see a guest entry from him about the supposed evil empire of Wegmans. I personally love All-Things-Wegmans! And I don’t even feel bad about buying my seasonal produce from them because they buy from the same people I’d buy from (Partykas [sp?], Browns, Kirby’s, etc.). Could Jeffrey perhaps be just a little jealous because NYC has nothing that even compares to Wegmans? Hmmm, Jeffrey?

Now spending your money at Tops, on the other hand, won’t even insure your money stays in the country, as it’s actually owned by an international company. I hate Tops anyway.

I work with the librarian who quoted you! Walter Minkel is a librarian at the Early Childhood Information Resource Center in the NYPL. He's a good guy.

We have a HUGE problem with DVDs being stolen in the NYPL. What's really bad is that not all of them are stolen by patrons. We have a big problem with DVDs disappearing before they even arrive at individual branch libraries (new items are shipped to a central processing area in Manhattan first before they go to individual libraries). It's really disappointing because they're an essential item for a public library to have, but we lose a ton of money by spending so much on them only to have half of them disappear within a week after they begin circulating.

Our local ACE hardware closed a few years ago, and it continues to annoy me that I have to go into that huge freaking Home Depot every time I want something hardware-y. ACE used to always have what I needed, and it wasn't so overwhelming.

Hi Aaron! So good to hear from you! :) I don't think Walter writes for SLJ anymore, does he? He seemed nice when I talked to him, and I have no one but myself to blame for sounding a little flighty. Sadly, it's not as if he misquoted me.

It sounds like *you* need to write an expose about theft among library employees. Every once in a while we have something mysteriously disappear in Webster. We had a rash of it a few years ago, but I don't think it happens much now. It was really a problem for a few months when I worked at the Lockport Library back in the day.

As for the current thefts, it's a little easier to deal with the loss of a few DVDs at $20 or so a piece, but PS2 games are more like $30-50. And you don't even want to know what I had to go through to convince the powers that be that it was a good idea for us to start stocking console games in the first place. You would have thought I'd suggested that we start a porn collection. (I HAVE suggested that we offer coin-operated unfiltered Internet terminals in the back of the library as a continuous fund-raiser, but everyone thinks I'm joking.) And, of course, with the fancy new Xbox system coming out, I keep thinking maybe we should start expanding into Xbox games (not to mention people keep asking for them). But now I'm not so sure.

That whole DVD thing made me mad mostly because the two thieves made off with two of our Buffy sets and a 6 Feet Under set -- not cheap, believe me. I didn't know the reporter was going to quote me since I haven't talked to her in over a month. But it all came out good.

Spencerport Hardware closed a couple months ago, and boy do I miss 'em. I could go in that store and actually reach the top shelves, which is in no way possible at Home Depot. They had a store cat, too, which was cool.

They stole BUFFY?!? I had no idea. If nothing else, THAT is a sign of moral depravity.

I can't even reach the middle shelves at the Depot. I always find myself climbing on things the way the signs say you aren't supposed to. I've mostly been avoiding the whole issue by ignoring my home rennovation projects.

I'm annoyed that our local hardware store closed after TPOD (the pit of despair also known as Super Walmart)& Home Despot opened, they fixed screens,made keys correctly, and were just really nice but of course the giants crushed them. I also disagree with Jeffrey about Wegman's mainly because Tops "never stops pissing me off."

As for library theives that is just wrong on so many levels that I can not begin to comment.