Kindling

• I'm used to associating the word 'kindling' with small pieces of dry wood that can be used to start a fire. The stuff that you would light first before putting on the big logs. Not an uncommon word. But I've been at two separate stores on the Oregon coast where the assistants either didn't know the word at all, or gave it a different meaning than the one to which I am used. I think that both were Fred Meyer, but could be misremembering this.
  
  #1
  Me: Do you have kindling?
  Store assistant: Is that a special kind of wood?
  
  #2:
  Me: Do you have kindling?
  Store clerk points towards hefty pieces of firewood.
  Me: No, I mean kindling. Small pieces.
  Store clerk: You mean to start a fire?
  Me: Yes.
  Store clerk (pointing again at the hefty firewood): That's what I use in my furnace at home.