Reconstructed
an excerpt

Mirrah lifted a basket from the stack near the entry of the hardware store. Her heels clicked against the speckled tile floor as she headed towards the aisle that bore the large “Plumbing” sign above it.

Pipe, spigots, fittings, traps—the three designated plumbing aisles were a disorganized mess. Logically, the waterline elbows should be right here…

“Can I help you, ma’am?”

“Yeah, I’m looking for one inch CPVC ninety degree elbows.”

The main crinkled his eyes and looked down at her. “CPVC? Are you sure you don’t mean PVC, hon?”

“It’s water pipe. I mean CPVC.”

“Now the PVC is white, where the CPVC is a tan color—“

“It’s CPVC.”

“One inch water pipe, huh? What’s that for?” He chuckled as if he expected her to go into details of some crafty home décor project that required a few pieces of pipe to be painted and arranged to hold a wreath or something like that. He led her to the end aisle, where there were elbows and couplings between plungers and faucets. Of course. It couldn’t be near the actual lengths of pipe, where people would be apt to look.

“It’s for a house.”

“A house. Hmmm. Well, we don’t have any one inch. Not much demand for that. Here’s a three-quarter ninety. Do you think it could be this instead? One inch sure is awful big for a house.”

Mirrah blinked, frowning at the plumbing joint the man held in front of her face. “No. That will not work.”

“Are you sure it’s one inch, hon? Who measured it?” He winked at her. “Did you measure from the edges or did you measure from the diameter of the hole? You see, the opening—“

“Thanks anyway.” Mirrah stepped behind the man and marched to the exit, shoving her basket on top of the others.

“Have a nice day,” the woman at the cash register said, not looking up from the computer.

“Yeah, you too,” Mirrah grumbled as she pushed through the doors.