A "distributor wrench". After receiving the "we can have that for you tomorrow" reply, I actually did find one of these locally. But only because an industrial supply store told me where I could get one from another industrial supplier. . . as long as I entered that story with the story that I was buying it for a business.
Ulysses Everett McGill:
Well, ain't this place a geographical oddity. Two weeks from everywhere!From Oh Brother! Where Art Thou!
Recently I had need of a distributor wrench.
I actually didn't know that's what they were called. Only that there were curved wrenches. I wasn't working on a distributor, I was working on starter, and there was a bolt way up underneath the starter that was very hard to remove and which called for the use of a curved wrench. I lacked one.
And so the Odyssey began.
I can recall these being available locally, more specifically in auto parts stores, which is where I'd expect to find them:
"We can have one for you tomorrow".
That's the answer that I received.
That's the answer that was also provided about the starter a bit earlier. "We can have that for you tomorrow". I suppose that's no surprise, the vehicle is far from new.
For windshield wipers, which ended up being the wrong size when they arrived (for that matter, the first stater was defective), it was a a few days that it took, which was perhaps even more understandable.
But then, even stopping in at the bakery for cookies on that day brought the news "we'll have them tomorrow".
And hence the problem of being in modern retail.
For almost any question asked, if the answer is "we can have them. . . ", well I can probably have them delivered to my door in short order.
But maybe not tomorrow.
Any time over that. . . well I can do that as well.
And hence the problem with modern retail.
Being of a distributist mindset, I always try to buy local if I can. And I try to go to a local retailer for that matter. If a local retailer isn't available, I try to go to a locally owned franchise.
But as the Internet has set in, it's become harder and harder for local retailers, and that reflects itself unfortunately on what's available over the counter, or on the shelves. I understand that the market is competitive, and an auto parts store doesn't want to necessarily spend its money to stock items for a fifty year old engine (in fairness, one highly local parts store did. . . but for the one with the automatic transmission, not the standard transmission. . . but next time I'll start their first) when they have to compete with parts outfits that can deliver the same items over the net and probably have a different stocking financial dynamic.
And I'm not really blaming them for that. But if I'm left, as I was on at least one occasion, with a several day wait. . . will I buy locally or simply order?
I ordered from the local retailer, but I'm likely the exception.
Indeed, often the answer isn't "I can have that here tomorrow" but "we can order that for you". If that's the answer, it's not the correct one. I can order it too. Most people will. Sometimes I will also.
Indeed, not in auto parts but something else, I've had a clerk him and haw about an item while looking on the net only to say "I can order that for you" and quote me a price four times as high as the one I looked up on the net myself. I knew that they wouldn't have that in stock, but wanted to give them the chance. I didn't order it from the store for obvious reasons.
Likewise, just recently I stopped in The Tattered Cover, a big downtown bookstore in Denver that I've always loved and experienced the "we can order. . ." reply to a book that's fairly common, if quite old, which I thought they might stock. The Tattered Cover remains a great book store and a Denver institution, but it's now a one story book store when it had been a three story one some decades ago. I'm sure that Amazon cut into its business. But it just doesn't carry what it once did, which doesn't mean that its not worth going to. Indeed, I bought several books there. I'll stop in a local independent retailer and see if they have the same book, but I fear that I'll hear the "we can order" reply, and understandably.
To put this in really extreme terms there's not even a local clothing retailer in my home town that sells clothing suited for my weekday line of work anymore. Not one. There used to always be one downtown, but no longer. There's still one that sells Western clothing, so I can buy Levis from a local retailer, but I can't buy, for example, the Levis' product sold under the name "Dockers" from a locally owned store.
This relates in this odd way.
Dockers are chinos and they're common office wear for folks who work in offices. As there aren't any local retailers who sell them anymore, for a good twenty plus years I've bought them from one of the giant retailers at the "mall". One of them still stocks a lot of trousers, but Sears, which used to offer some variety and competition to the other, Penny's, got pretty thin in that department. Maybe it's improved, I don't know, but I don't go in there anymore. I gave up. Anyhow, last time I bought Dockers, yes, I ordered them over the net. Levi's on line store had a better selection. I should probably buy some more chinos but now I'm literally at the point where my debate is whether to buy directly from Levi's or one of the other brands that's out there.
None of which is a position that a person with a Distributist and Localist mindset really wants to be in.
I don't know how to solve this problem, so this isn't a tirade against local retailers. But there has been a change that is a self feeding one into irrelevance that retailers do need to grapple with. If a person wants to buy locally, there needs to be a reason to do it beyond mere philosophical mindset for most people. It's highly understandable if specialty items aren't available, but if common ones also aren't, pretty quickly most people will go elsewhere.
Put another way, its understandable while an old starter isn't available, even though at one time in the same places getting it would have been the norm, as it isn't a rare part. But if curved wrenches that used to sit behind the counter aren't, that's a problem.
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