Chapter 2 begins with Ana returning home after the interview where sick Katherine gives her a BIG HUG for doing the interview for her.  Ummm..get off me bitch, you’ve got the flu!

We also learn that Ana works in a hardware store.  Here’s some interesting information right from the text:

“I’ve worked at Clayton’s since I started at WSU. It’s the largest independent hardware store in the Portland area, and over the four years I’ve worked here, I’ve come to know a little bit about most everything we sell – although ironically, I’m crap at any DIY.”

Hmm…she’s worked there for 4 years and has only come to know “a little bit” about most everything they sell.  Ana also certainly hasn’t learned what a customer is.  Here’s another lovely quote a few pages later:

“Saturday at the store is a nightmare. We are besieged by do-it-yourselfers wanting to spruce up their homes. Mr. and Mrs. Clayton and John and Patrick – the two other part-timers – and I are besieged by customers.”

Umm…aren’t do-it-yourselfers customers?  Oh, I forgot!  Ana knows nothing about DIY.  How silly of me!

Well, guess who shows up in the store that day?  Yep. Mr. Grey.  And despite the fact that he’s always called her Miss Steele, until he called her Anastasia before the elevator closed at the end of Chapter 1, she decides to tell him her name is Ana.  But he still calls her Miss Steele anyway.

E.L. James also treats us to beautiful descriptions like this – “His voice is warm and husky like dark melted chocolate fudge caramel…or something.”  Doesn’t that just drip with prose and poetry and chocolate…or something?

Mr. Grey came in because he needs a few things: cable ties (aisle eight), masking tape (the decorating aisle), and some rope.  Ana leads him around and shows him where everything is, trying hard not to drool or trip. We wouldn’t want her boobs falling out, now would we?  I know what you are wondering though.  I thought the same thing: What store keeps masking tape on the decorating aisle??

He asks her if he needs anything else, despite not knowing what he’s doing with these things, to which she suggests coveralls to protect his clothing.  He suggests he could always take his clothes off, to which she turns red – “the color of the Communist Manifesto.”

Mr. Grey agrees to a photo shoot for the article and gives Ana his card, and then leaves the store with his bag flung over his shoulder.  I ask you…How many straight men leave a hardware store with their bag of shit flung over their shoulder??

Oh, we also meet Ana’s mom and dad in this chapter briefly, a college friend who is a photographer with an eye for Ana (how convenient), and the brawny brother of the store’s owner who flings himself all over Ana and makes Mr. Grey pouty.

Poor Mr. Grey….just take your cable ties, tape, rope and coveralls and go home and play do-it-yourselfer.