The old guy at Ace Hardware who told me my paint was 'too thick' by just looking at it

I was grabbing a quart of satin finish for a touch up job and this retired painter just peers at the can from across the aisle and says 'you're gonna fight that all day, it needs a splash of water'. He was dead right and saved me 20 minutes of frustration. Has anyone else had a random stranger just nail your problem in two seconds?

3 comments

3 Comments

kim.jake1mo ago

Honestly, that kind of stuff is almost spooky sometimes. There's a guy at my local shop who can spot a bad batch of caulking from ten feet away just by the way the tube sits in your hand. It's like they've got some sixth sense from all those years of doing the work. Tbh, I half expect him to tell me my lawnmower blade is dull just by looking at how I walk past the register. Ngl, those old timers are a national treasure we don't appreciate enough.

paul_taylor211mo ago

Got a buddy who was trying to fix a leaky faucet last summer. He spent forty minutes wrestling with a cartridge that just wouldn't budge, cussing up a storm in the plumbing aisle of Home Depot. Some older guy in a flannel shirt walked by, looked at the cartridge in my friend's hands, and said "you're turning it the wrong way, lefty loosey." @kim.jake hit the nail on the head calling those guys a national treasure. My friend felt like a fool but the faucet was fixed in under two minutes after that. That kind of know-how just comes from years of doing things the hard way.

stellaperry1mo ago

The flannel shirt is basically their uniform at this point (my dad has three of them hanging in his garage right now). It’s funny how they just appear when you’re about to make a huge mistake, like a guardian angel with bad knees and a Leatherman.