You know those images that we’ve all seen played out in the media and advertising campaigns of us older folks enjoying our golden years; spending the weekends gently swinging on a hammock in a well-manicured garden, sipping away on a cocktail with the wind blowing through our Grecian Formula dyed hair (or what’s left of it), listening to the whistling sound of the of the yellow breasted Kiskadee … ah, yes. Well, let me tell you that it’s a bunch of baloney. My weekends are as about as stressful and busy as a regular work week.By the time the weekend comes around I’ve already been handed a ‘Honey-Do List’, or as wifey likes to call it a ‘Do it list or I kick ya butt’. You see, I was cursed by two things in life; my boyish good looks and my ability as a handy man, and because of that I’ve been taken advantage of all my life. However, more by the handy man skills these days than the looks, but that’s another story.This weekend I was pleasantly surprised to see that my list was quite short (not the norm); a leaky faucet, replace a few light bulbs and a touch up on some grouting in the shower. Well, this isn’t bad I thought. I get up early, relax with a coffee, read the paper, cut the grass, do a bit of weed whacking, get a shower and head off to the stores for my supplies. I can be in the hammock with a beer by 3pm. Sounds like a plan. Life is good.So anyway everything was going along just fine, like a well-planned military operation. I had my coffee, read that paper. By 9am, I had pulled the cord on the mower, by 10.30am the weed whacker was at full throttle and by 11am I was blowing all my leaves into my neighbours’ yard. Thirty minutes later, I was in the shower, out the door and heading into town.My first stop was a plumbing store to get a new faucet set. As I drove in the yard I looked around and thought to myself, “Self, this is your lucky day, no one is here, I will be in and out in ten minutes”. I get to the door only to discover it was locked! The sign on the door read ‘Saturday open 9am to 12pm’, (insert curse word here).Alright my tile place is around de corner, I will get my grout. When I get there, I get this sinking feeling in my gut. Yup, I’m the only car in the yard. I get out of the car and head towards the door, without even raising my head I tug at the door. Locked! Just then I hear a shout behind me from a passerby “Hey Mister, they close at noon”. Still, with my head deep in my chest I raise my right arm to acknowledge the information that he had shared. I did a 180 and walked back to the car.Do I dare try my electric shop? OK, what the hay. So I set off. I’m not even going to go into this any further. Let’s just say I didn’t even get out of the car.Now I’ve been reading on how bad business has been in Bermuda; sales are down resulting in layoffs and cutbacks, so it amazes me that these businesses are not going out of their way to tap into the market to accommodate the weekend ‘D. I. Yer’ like me those of us who find it difficult to get out of the house before noon, especially if you have more than one store to visit. Are you really doing that well that you can turn away business on a Saturday? I think not!I’ve got a radical idea. Why don’t we have a hardware store open on a Sunday since they don’t want to open all day on Saturdays? I’m not saying have the same one open every Sunday, but how about on a rotational basis? We have Masters, SAL, Gorham’s, Standard and Baptiste, to name a few one day a month one of them opens to accommodate us weekend D. I. Yers. This way, everyone can get a piece of the pie.So I can see you’re wondering what the outcome was of my wasted Saturday trip. Did I get to my hammock earlier than I thought? Was I going to be swinging in the summer breeze dangling one leg over and sipping a Heineken? When I got home I explained to my little ‘piranha fish’ my dilemma and why I came back empty-handed. Her response was, ‘Oh, sorry you’ll have to go out again. I was lying the hammock and the damn thing broke. We need a new sling for it’!What do you think about this? E-mail Grumpy and let him know: grumpyoldman@royalgazette.bm.Don’t forget, you can also follow Grumpy on Twitter (he can’t text, but we taught him how to tweet.) Here’s the address: https://twitter.com/GrumpyoldmanMan