You’re Not Finding It
Every three months the supermarket reorganizes and it’s like they’re designing it specifically to waste your time. You learn where everything is—milk here, eggs there, the quick-cooking stuff you eat at midnight in a specific aisle—and then they move it all. The eggs go where the drinks were. Drinks end up somewhere that makes no sense. You’re walking in circles for twenty minutes looking for something basic, asking staff who are equally lost, leaving with maybe half of what you came for.
Every shop does this. Clothes stores, shoe places, bookstores—they all operate on the same logic: make shopping as difficult as possible. You find something that actually works, that fits right, and either they don’t have your size or swear it’s completely out of stock. Won’t be back. Ever. You ask if they can check the other location. They tell you they’ll call. You know they won’t. You drive over there anyway because what else are you doing, and it’s sitting right there. Two full boxes of the exact shoe they just said was discontinued and gone. Nobody’s bought them. They’re just taking up space.
I worked retail once. Bad job, no question. But somewhere along the way, people stopped trying to help and started just existing at the register until their shift ended. You ask if they can check something. They already know the answer: no. Ask if it might come in sometime. Not really. Want me to call the other store? No point. The dishonesty is so automatic it almost becomes honest—at least you know exactly what you’re getting, which is a flat no delivered with zero effort.
The real pain is when you actually need something specific. School required this one textbook, thing was scarce, probably wouldn’t get reprinted. First bookstore: doesn’t exist. Second bookstore: found it but out of print. Third bookstore: not in stock. Fourth one finally calls back and can order it, so I go pick it up a few days later and the cover’s been destroyed. Looks like someone ordered it years ago, gave up, and it got stuck in some warehouse. Pages are intact but the whole thing’s beat to hell.
After that I just started ordering from catalogs. No pretense there. You flip through, call some number, give them your information, wait three or four months. Size might be wrong. You might hate it. Doesn’t matter. No lies about checking the back or calling another location—you know it’s a long wait and you’re fine with it.
The seasonality is insane though. Winter coats on sale in September. Sunscreen in March when it’s still cold. By July all the summer stuff’s gone and they’re already hanging fall clothes. Nothing arrives when you actually need it. You have to buy for the wrong season or accept that you’ll want something two weeks after they stopped carrying it.
I don’t fight it anymore. Most of the time I just don’t buy whatever it was. Easier.