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I never thought I'd ever hear myself say this, but Home Depot apparently has people in the upper echelons of management that took lessons from Wal-Mart top executives.  This means they have trout guts for brains.

So what's got me so riled up about Home Deadpan?  Simple; evaporative coolers.  For those of you who don't know what an evaporative cooler (commonly referred to as a swamp cooler) is, it's simple.  Water is pumped from a basin into pads.  In some cases, when the pump goes bad, you can use Barry Mannillow music to encourage the water to run into the pads.  Either way, you get these pads soaking wet, and then they have a wet t-shirt contest.  A fan blows air through the pads and into the ductwork of a house.  As the air passes through the wet t-shirts pads, it cools off.  In dry conditions, this is an exceptional alternative to air conditioning.  It's extremely efficient, and works fantastically.  Everyone is happy and cool.  Until the Monsoon hits.  Then everyone asks you why you haven't yet sprang for an air conditioning unit.  Nevermind that simply installing an A/C would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $5,000.00, but electric bills suddenly go from reasonable to invading the kids college fund.  

Anyway, Home Deadpan considers evaporative coolers to be "seasonal inventory".  Meaning they only sell them between May and August.  Let's take a look at exactly what that means.  For those of us who have very old, delapidated swamp coolers that may require replacement at any moment, we had better hope our units decide to die during this timeframe.  Even more, we had better hope that our units decide to die during the very short timeframe that Home Deadpan has units in stock.  Because once they're out of stock, they don't order new ones until next season.  They won't even special order for you.

The Home Deadpan smegma suckers top executives exist in their own little world in Atlanta, GA.  They live in their little air conditioned town homes, condos, girlfriend's homes, whatever.  They make decisions on inventory for the entire chain from Atlanta, GA.  They think they know what goes on out here in southern Arizona.  Do you know why they use air conditioning in Atlanta, GA?  Because it's so freakin humid out there that swamp coolers wouldn't work!  In fact, I'd lay 100 to 1 odds that most residents of Atlanta don't even know what a evaporative cooler is.  I'm not saying that Atlanta folks are dumb.  I'm just saying that the environment in Atlanta isn't condusive to proper functionality of evaporative coolers, and therfore they don't have any.  And I'm also willing to believe that yes, cooling supplies in Atlanta is actually seasonal.

Let's get back to Arizona, now.  Arizona is hot!  We have basically two seasons.  Hot, and "I'm Melting!  I'm Melting!  What a World!" Hot.

Get this through your head, Atlanta-based Home Depot Executives; hot in Arizona is not seasonal!  We run our coolers or A/C's nearly 365 days a year.  It's a constant year-round requirement, okay?  And when they require replacing, we do not have the luxury of waiting until next season to replace them.  Especially for those of us who have roof-mounted units.  You know why?  Because they leak into the roof!  They cause damage to the ceiling drywall.  Damage that, unless fixed immediately, can lead to mold buildup.  And unless we get the cooler fixed quickly, we cannot replace the ceiling parts because then it will just start all over again.

Forunately, there are at least two other places here in town where I can buy an evaporative cooler.  I ended up shopping at the one home improvement store in town that I hate.  I won't mention that their name is Sutherland's.  But I was fortunate, this time.  I ended up talking to someone who actually seemed to have a clue about what he was selling me.  The nice part is, I got the same exact brand and model of cooler I would have gotten from Home Deadpan for about $50.00 less.  Now I get to spend the entire day on Sunday putting the new unit in.