Here in California the local eqivalent to rock crusher fines is known as decomposed granite fines, and unlike pea gravel, does not "crunch" when walked across. Unless a stabilizing polymer product is added to solidify it, it isn't ideal for slopes,(it easily erodes), and it does get tracked into the house and can ruin wood floors. If you don.t have a level pathway, you must use a polymer stabilizer, and you should also contain the edges if you want it to stay in place, which greatly adds to the ultimate initial cost to install it. If the stuff you are looking at makes noise when walked upon,(maybe it was never compacted with a roller), or it is mostly larger dized particles more akin to gravel. Gravel probably is a better choice for sloped paths and where tracking fines onto a wood floor is an issue, but still gets moved around over time and is going to require topping off occasionally and will also require weeding as will the pathway with smaller fines. Here in California the decomposed granite paths and paving readily grow moss and grasses such as annual blue grass each winter rainy season and need to be sprayed or hoed to keep clear. In the summer rainfall regions of the country, weeds will just grow in breeze that much faster.

I would buy a scratch stick and fill it in myself. Because wood fillers stay forever tacky dirt will quickly collect over it. So I would take a paint brush and dip it into polyurethane and cover over it carefully. My floor is 50+ years old with nails holding it in place instead of the tongue & groove. Often the wood putty pops off a nail head and I just recover it again with new putty. I think this guy was lazy and didn't tell you the truth about the scratch but he should have filled it in with a stick or putty before he polyurethaned over it.

We went to a dinner party just last night. Several dining areas and one had bench seating on one of the rooms. Lovely room & lovely table. I was not quite the last person at the table, but had to sit in the middle. There is just not a graceful way to slip into the center. Both persons on the ends had to get up so I could be seated. Fortunately, they were very gracious, and I was very thankful I was wearing slacks and not a dress. I'd been considering bench seating too, but after this experience, I think I'll be going with chairs.

We just came back from getting our 1st round of shots. :0) I used 50 miles on the locator, came up with 594 locations, but .......I was on the 2nd page before I actually found it available. My neighborhood Walgreens said they had a 16 page waiting list and would not put anyone else on it. THAT sounded like two years to me! After we get the next round of shots I'll go on "Nextdoor" and publish the "Shingrix locator". People just think because one place is out & they heard it on the news it was scarce....it's not worth looking around.