There are certain places that simply have to be seen to be fully appreciated. The Grand Canyon springs to mind. The Banff Springs Hotel. Niagara Falls. Jay Leno’s Garage. The Vatican. My bathroom.
No other place I’ve experienced, however, has quite the same power to bring your brain to a complete screeching halt as a chain of stores in Canada called Princess Auto.
Having said it defies description, allow me to attempt to describe. It is a guy’s Happy Place. It features virtually every tool you could conceive of needing, and several dozen you never knew you needed until the moment you saw it. A four-foot socket-wrench extension? How have I lived without this? A spark-plug gapper with a built-in laser-pointer and flashlight? That makes so much sense!
It is, however, their surplus section that brings the greatest amount of sheer glee. The absolute randomness of items that can be found in this back corner of their warehouse was enough to convince me, on my first visit, that the next time I returned I was bringing a full mug of coffee and spending some quality time there. Since my words can really never hope to do it justice, I’ve collected a few photos to attempt to explain.
Redneck Fabulous: Unique World Edition
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45 responses to “Redneck Fabulous: Unique World Edition”
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Is the diesel engine cheap enough to put in a Lemons car? If so I have an idea.
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Does it involve this?
This is a link-
perhaps… are you in my head again?
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Sounds like a fun place.
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It sounds like Tractor Supply only bigger. FIELD TRIP!
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Do I have to do the US AutoZone version of this post?
Or maybe I should take a trip to Super Autobacs this weekend… I DO need to shop for a LeMons race seat.-
Ahh yes, an Autozone reference/sub-topic.
In each of my four tours of duty at ‘A-holezone’ (yes I said FOUR), there was always a continual stream of shit that was stockpiled within the store in the ‘Accessories’ isle.
There were the usual craptastic items that would appear, such as the “led exhaust tip” and the “Ain’t Skeerd” windshield banner.
The best thing about this was when the crap would not sell, and eventually there would be a manager’s special bin, in which all of this stuff would land. The stuff would be marked down, like the $24.99 neon lighted shift knob would be marked down to 9.99, but eventually I would get tired of 15 year olds asking me how low I would actually go on the item, so I would mark the crap down to 5 cents and sell it along with some shop towels or hand cleaner (the managers and regional managers loved it when you sold hand cleaner and shop towels, I think they would get an extra star or something).
Anyhow, occasionally one of the ‘regulars’ would come in and buy the whole load of the freshly clearanced items, as the manager would make a deal like “buy two 48 packs of shop towels and I’ll throw the whole load of clearanced shit in for an extra ten bucks.” I just loved this, because you know that crap would probably show up at the nearest flea market.
I don’t know how or why a company would tarnish their character with this crapola. While I was working there, inevitably there would be something we couldn’t get, like a alternator for a VW or something, so instead I would sarcastically offer to sell them a set of neons for the car instead, and then gave them the phone number to the complaint hotline.
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Yo, screw lights.
Also, why did you not buy every single one of those gas can flasks and then distribute them like candy to the readership? Huh? Huh?!-
Honestly? I think every single one of them was broken somehow.
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Here’s the thing about flasks: they’re always malfunctioning at time of purchase. It’s up to you to make them work properly.
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Which one is you?
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That one.
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Hey kids, don’t drink and drive. Now that I’ve got that out of the way, I didn’t even know that I needed a flask shaped like a jerry can, but lo and behold…
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So is there one of these in Edmonton, AB? That flask would go perfectly with my Power Ranger halloween costume.
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Um. Yes. These photos were taken at the one on 34th Ave, between the Whitemud and South Edmonton Common.
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How much for the diesel engine?
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How much ya got?
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(looks in wallet)
$7 -
*looks in wallet* $7.00
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Looks similar to a Northern Tool store here in the US. Except I’m pretty sure you can’t get bacon at Northern Tool. Most of the other stuff is probably there, random small engines, axles, 4 foot long Chinese pipe wrenches, assorted car crap, and weird hats, but no bacon. Is that Canadian Bacon?
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Well, it’s in Canada.
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If you go now its the 5 day Super Celebration!
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I’d imagine the jerry can flask is filled with cheap moonshine, which smells like gasoline and can be used as such in a pinch. Or, just gasoline.
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E85
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Everclear would be a natural.
I wonder if they are available in bulk so someone could logo-brand them and use them as a promotional give-away (although the photo doesn’t seem to show a surface suitable for printing on. -
$9:
http://www.gunthergifts.com/6ozjecanlifl.html
I think I might need to buy one of these-
Ah…! Room for an engraved monogram. That makes sense, but doesn’t explain why they would end up at an auto parts emporium (unless, as Dearthair suspects, they are damaged inventory).
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So you could always just get “GAS” written on it. Or do you think they take numbers? Then “E85” would be best.
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Sixteen comments and not one quip about the brand name of the second diesel engine? We’re either slipping or prudish, depending on one’s perspective.
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Wow, didn’t even see that one. Good catch. I’m sure all of those subaru drivers favorite brand of diesel engine is the lauded “Power Fist”.
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When I saw the words “Power Fist,” this was the first thing that came to mind:
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(Great. A new site and I’m already messing up the comment code.)
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Unfortunately, that’s not what first came to mind when I saw “Power Fist”.
I gotta get my mind outta the gutter. -
Just don’t do an image search for it at work…
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You’d be giggling your head off the whole time you were in there. That’s their “no-name” brand. So anything that’s not, say, DeWalt, or Hitachi or Hilti is branded “PowerFIST”
And yes, the first few times I went in there, I’m pretty sure I tittered a fair bit.-
After poking around a little, apparently “powerfist” is an engrish-chinese translation for something like ‘power-punch’
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I didn’t bother to enlarge the thumbnail until you mentioned it. “Power Fist” would probably be a winner at the Folsom Street Faire in the Castro. I’ve got videos featuring reciprocating motorized “penetration appliances”, but I don’t believe any of those were Diesel-powered.
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Well, you wouldn’t want the throttle to get stuck open, would you?
https://hooniverse.com/blog/2009/10/23/dirt-track-bike-becomes-self-aware-attempts-escape-is-thwarted-by-chainlink-fence/-
No need to worry the throttle on a diesel sticking, since they don’t have one. Just shut off the fuel supply.
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Uh, there should be an “about” in there somewhere.
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You can’t stop here. This is Thompson country!
Damn, I haven’t laughed so hard in a while- Thanks. That place looks awesome, too bad there wasn’t any real bacon though. I do need a no name diesel engine for my generic project that I might allot some time to accomplish during a reasonable period, so I might need to consider heading in that direction to possibly purchase such an item. : )
Bacon? You can’t handle Canadian Bacon.
[…] or some creative tie-in. All I have for you is the story behind this photo. As I wandered through a Princess Auto a few days ago, I stumbled across a collection of bins that made me laugh out loud. There were no […]
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