Well, I didn’t want to be bothered with finding the damned shovel to dig a shallow grave - I was afraid I’d have to go to Lowes again.
Littlebro had never lived “on his own”: he’d gone away to college, but always lived in a dorm, so no need to clean or cook. His biggest household worry had been “where is the toilet paper reserve?”
At one point when I’d left Mom’s after Dad’s death, with nary a penny to my name, Littlebro loaned me the money I needed to buy a car on a “pay back as you can” basis (it’s the car he uses now, still registered under both our names). I didn’t pay him anything for the first month of being on my own, he had no problem with it.
Move further forward, and he moves into his very own flat. And after a couple weeks he was telling me “I’d never realized how much all that household stuff adds up to! Mop, kitchen cloths and towels, windex, dish soap, dishwasher soap… how did you manage to start paying me back on the second month? :eek:”
True. You did have the saw though.
On an unrelated note, a relative (**Ms. Attack’s **first cousin’s husband) was driving by on the Trans-Canada, and offered to bring in Attackdog, so now the whole family is together again, which is nice.
All the predictions from this thread came true, of course, since I immediately had to go to Canadian Tire for a spade (shovel*) to remove any residual dog poop left from the previous owner’s dogs, in order to not further confuse Attackdog.
*Ms. Attack and I speak different versions of English. She tells me we need a spade to work in the garden, and it takes me half an hour to figure out that we need a shovel to work in the yard.
This is a spade.
This is a shovel. Any questions? 
Actually, I think shovel is the generic, and spade is the specific type of shovel. I have a favourite spade that I use in my yard all the time for breaking soil; I have many shovels for all kinds of different things.
Ms. Attack would agree with you. However, the sign at Canadian Tire that was over the thing in the ‘spade’ image said very clearly ‘shovel’, to my secret delight, and they seem to call everything a shovel.
That said, I grew up in the American South. I use the term ‘spade’ to refer to a suit of cards, and nothing else.
To me, This is a spade.
Have you guys run into the “eavestrough/gutters” debate yet? 
Opal, that looks more like a trowel to me.
I would also call that a trowel, although I dimly recall the phrase ‘hand spade’ in some Agatha Christie /Bertie Wooster steeped district of my brain.
Is the “eavestrough/gutters” debate another shibboleth for weeding out non-Canadians, or is it a classic argument from the Senate?
I learned on this very board this very year that Canadians call gutters on houses eavestroughs, but US Americans don’t. I said WHAAAAAA?
I shall investigate this forthwith.
My daughter is just starting the search for her first house, with us along offering our experienced advice (first on the list - always get an inspection. Took us a while to learn that one…) We’ve stomped thru 3 fixer-uppers so far, one was a tear-down, one was teensy and badly laid out, and the third had possibilities, but still needed more work than we wanted to do.
She’s got to get a good realtor. The woman who took us to the first 3 places never responded to her subsequent contacts, so we’re going to find our old realtor and hook them up. There are 5 or 6 places closer to us that bear investigation. Luckily, she’s in no hurry, other than her own desire to live in her own place.
I love shopping for houses. I hate the work that comes with moving…
Yup, that realtor’s got to go. Our realtor was excellent; she was ALWAYS available for us, and I do mean always - I think we could have called her at three in the morning if we needed to.
I like shopping for houses, too. Our first house was a great find; it had good, solid structure, but was beat down in superficial ways, so we got it for much less than market value, then spent five years doing paint and flooring type fixes. We sold it last year for more than double what we paid for it. 
Ms. Attack says gutters, which is fortunate, in that it is another word that I understand without translation or funny accent*.
*Unlike “pasta”.
Well, you’re prepared now for hearing it on tv or in casual conversation.