The fellow that owns his own home is always just coming out of a hardware store.

Hubbard’s joke turns homeownership into a perpetual, mildly comic state of maintenance. The “fellow” who owns a house is “always just coming out of a hardware store” because a home continually generates small crises and improvements—leaks, loose hinges, paint, tools, and the endless urge to tinker. The line gently punctures the idealized notion of owning property as pure comfort or stability, suggesting instead that it entails ongoing labor, expense, and practical know‑how. It also captures a distinctly early‑20th‑century, small‑town American realism: domestic life is grounded in repairs and errands, and the hardware store becomes a symbol of the hidden, everyday work behind the pride of having one’s “own home.”