My portable spinning wheel has this little screw thing that attaches the foot to the wheel (I don't know what this particular piece of hardware is called). Lately I have been having a problem with it coming unscrewed while I am using the wheel, which is annoying to say the least.

This morning, I decided to bring the screw to the hardware store to find a replacement. Not wanting to seem silly, I went over to the wall of screws and started examining my different options, but after about 2 minutes decided that I didn't want to spend the rest of the day looking at the billion different kinds of screws to find the one I wanted.

I went to the front desk, held up the object and said, "I need one of these. I don't know what it is called or where I would find it."

The guy looked at it and said, "That's interesting. I don't know if we have anything exactly like this. What's it for?"

"My spinning wheel."

"Oh. Do you keep that next to your butter churn?"

(I was, in fact, able to find an replacement for my item, which, while not as pretty, should be functional, which is the most important thing."