The Saga of the Board, Part I

You may remember that a couple of days ago, I sent out an urgent plea for help on the French bulletin board. Well, my best friend read my post and said "Oh, I can help you with that, no problem".

So, we decided to get together on Saturday. I did a little research, and we set off to the Home Depot, for some kind of board. Literally, that's all we knew. "It's some kind of board stuff". As we were leaving, I naively told my husband, "We'll be back in about an hour and a half". He briefly glanced up from the football game and dismissed us.

First, we headed to the local Home Depot, where we began to wander the aisles aimlessly, thinking that we'd see a big sign that said "BULLETIN BOARD SUPPLIES HERE". This did not happen. However, my friend DID drop the entire contents of her purse twice in about 2 minutes, which was awesome. Needless to say, we were cracking ourselves up the entire time. As usual, no one else was laughing with us.

Finally, we got the nerve to ask someone. We approached this young employee and said "do you have any cork?" He gave us that look-- the one you give complete morons, and just started walking. We followed behind, giggling, and he led us to another employee. This guy, with scorn in his voice, said "Are you making a bulletin board? With fabric?" while rolling his eyes at us, (and mentally cursing all these damn Martha wannabees). We just said that we were and followed him to a big stack of boards that were perfect for us.

The man showed us what we needed and how to cut the board. We insisted that we didn't need help cutting it and that it would DEFINITELY fit in our car. We carried this thing through the store and made a detour to purchase a staple gun and staples. We get out to the parking lot, and all the pushing and shoving in the world couldn't quite get this big ol' board into her car.

So we broke it. We just snapped it in half. Well, I don't know what kind of board this is, but there were little pieces of something flying around the car, all over our clothes, etc. My friend broke out in hives on her neck from it. We're calling it asbestos, but I'm pretty sure that's not what it was. At least I hope it wasn't.

Our next stop was the fabric store. We knew of one nearby, but we didn't think that one was good enough, so we thought we'd drive out a little ways to where we thought one was. Needless to say, there wasn't one out there, but there was a Starbucks, so the trip wasn't a total loss. We asked about nearby fabric stores at a local Michaels, and the very helpful lady there directed us RIGHT BACK WHERE WE CAME FROM.

So, we proceeded BACK to the original fabric store, where we spent about 45 minutes picking out the fabric, the batting, the ribbon, and the upholstery tacks. As I was waiting for the woman to cut my fabric, a very argumentative and rude customer looked at my fabric and said "What is THAT going to be?" Taken aback, I said "Hopefully a bulletin board". She said "Do you teach? Because that is going to be a VERY BIG bulletin board. I'm trying to imagine how that will look". (all this in a tone that indicated she didn't think this would look good AT ALL). I just told her that in my mind, it looked fabulous. Thanks for your opinion, lady, next time I need advice, I'll be sure to call you.

At this point, it is completely dark outside and we are heading back to my house to actually begin the project, totally exhausted. How did the project go, you ask? Well, tune in tomorrow and find out what happens in Part II of this fascinating tale of two wannabee crafters, a staple gun, and an asbestos board. You don't want to miss what happens next.