The Person I'm Next To Has A Superior Knowledge of Screws

I'm next to this older gentleman. He has a beard, and slicked back hair. Both of these things are grey, and oily looking. He is thin, but his skin is hanging slackly, like he used to be fat until recently, like yesterday maybe. Anyway he is talking to me, and he is frustrated, mainly because I don't know enough about screws. Which is the whole reason I'm talking to him.
He is an employee in a hardware store, I am a customer in a hardware store. I asked him for help matching screws and he just stared at me. To this guys thinking apparently only children and women should ask for help in a hardware store. This is bullshit, especially in this aisle. This god damn screw aisle.
I have a sinking suspicion that Eli Whitney is a myth. Mainly because every time I have to replace a screw, it is always impossible to find a replacement. Every screw that was ever made is in between proper screw sizes. So finding a replacement screw is this nerve racking affair. I try the size gauges, which are strange things, arcane and indecipherable. Then when I find the closest approximation of a match, I take the nonsense gibberish numbers and begin going through the racks of screws. But screws aren't organized numerically, or alphabetically. Instead they haul in an ape and instruct it to hurl giant ape sized handfuls of screws at a wall of buckets. Then they label the resulting mess in Cantonese and slap you across the face when you ask for help.
I pretty much ignore his disbelief in how stupid I am and ask again for help. He snorts and points at the aforementioned nonsensical screw gauge and walks off, cool and aloof, assured in his superiority.
I never did find the right screw.

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