[masraum]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

Stopped at Lowes today to get a new come-along, since that jerk kid stole my old one.
I asked the tool dept - a guy my age had no idea what a come-along is - he sent me to lawn and garden (!), where the guy was similarly perplexed but tried to look it up based on my description. He found half a dozen things and asked if that was what I was looking for. Finally the right image popped up - it was available BY ON-LINE ORDER ONLY from Walmart, but Lowes didn't carry them. I needed one today.
So I went to where the tie-downs etc were to see if I could find something that would work and lo and behold, there on the floor, with no pricing, were three come-alongs! Yes, they called them Power Pulls or some crap, but they were come-alongs. Yay!!

Reminds me of the time I tried to buy chain at Lowes. I told the guy I needed 12 feet of 5/16 chain and one slip hook and one grab hook. The kid was totally perplexed, started showing me stuff and asking, "Is this it? Is this it?" He worked in a place that sells them but he didn't know a slip hook from a grab hook. What do they teach kids these days?

End of rant.

I know what a come-along is, but if I was in the chain section, I wouldn't know what a slip hook was vs a grab hook if I was looking at a bunch of that stuff in boxes.

I'm a car guy, I've rebuilt motors from the ground up after having had all of the machining done. I had access to inside and outside micrometers and dial indicators and measured everything. I've built computers from parts purchased individually. I worked at a retail auto parts store and know what just about any part on a car was and could find just about anything in the catalogs (paper) that was possible to be had. I've done carpentry, plumbing and electrical in a home that I owned. I consider myself a pretty handy guy, but I guess I've just never needed to do that much chain/block and tackle kind of stuff.