I fought the gate and, I won?

So today I finally fixed a gate at Wendy's place. I tried to "fix" it after she first moved in, but my attempt had a flaw in it and caused it to be worse off then before. A second attempt turned out to be just as fruitless. Today, I achieved total victory!! And while I was at Lowe's I saw something that made me stop and think. While in the garden department I noticed one of the water spikets for watering was dripping, and they were using a trash can lid to catch the overflowing water. The lid was already full and running over, and it made me wonder something: Why in the world could a place with as many home improvement supplies as Lowe's couldn't find one working water spiket to replace the faulty one that was flooding the floor?