Supply chain woes creating major havoc
Before Covid, shopping was footloose and fancy free.
I would walk into a store, see something I liked, buy it and often be filled with selfloathing and regret. The good old days. Now we’re dealing with the dreaded supply chain — two words we’d rarely uttered before 2020. It’s wreaking havoc with everything from cooking oil to things I actually want to buy.
Regardless of the item, it seems the chain is far from supplied. Dead-eyed salespeople see you coming and on autopilot they repeat, “On back order. Supply chain.” How dare they? Not that they care but I need retail therapy and the endorphin rush I get from maxing out my credit card and being unable to make the payments. Now I practically need therapy when I try to participate in my God-given right to consume goods.
I’ve spent the last two years fantasizing about dropping a wad on something other than Skip the Dishes. Although the entire universe has been bemoaning the supply chain issue, in my trademark denial, I figured it was overblown and wouldn’t affect me ... until I walked into a big-box store in early April, pointed at a gazebo and said, “Wrap it up!”
Once the store clerk stopped laughing, she said, “This? You’re adorable! You can’t buy this, silly. It’s on back order. Supply chain.” I naively asked, “Do you know when you’ll be getting any?” By this point, the other wideeyed employees had gathered around, staring at me as if I’d just crawled out from under a rock. One of them gave me the low-down.
“Look, we got a huge order a month ago and we got mobbed unloading them. If you want a gazebo, check your computer 24 hours/day. If you find one online, pay for it, drive like a bat out of hell to the store, meet us with police protection at the warehouse doors, perform a passionate spoken-word poem on the virtues of a gazebo and slip the drivers a 50. You might have a shot.”
Not that we could pick it up if we do find one. Thanks to the supply chain’s limited microchips, we’re waiting for the truck we ordered months ago. The arrival date, colour and features keep changing. One minute, it’s black, has four tires and will arrive in a week. The next minute it’s purple, doesn’t have a steering wheel and will be here by Christmas. Same price. To say both my husband and I will be happy when it comes in is an understatement. He’s chomping at the bit to take a load to his favourite place, the dump, and I’m desperate to feast my eyes on an empty cargo bed that’s ready to be filled at a moment’s notice ... which at this rate means a year’s notice. Grrrrr.
Hasn’t COVID caused enough collateral damage? First, my overgrown roots and now shopping! I can’t even remember the last time I got a credit card statement that I couldn’t pay. It’s not fair. If the only thing that calms my limbic system during these troubled times is walking out of a fluorescentbathed store with an armful of unnecessary goods, so be it. If an empty cargo bed on a truck we can’t get our hands on fills me with sweet anticipation, so be it. And if I need actual therapy to understand why I soothe myself with retail therapy, so be it.
Stupid supply chain.
Colleen Landry is a high school writing teacher, author of humour book Miss Nackawic Meets Midlife and co-author of the Camelia Airheart children’s adventure series. She and her husband are empty nesters in Moncton, N.B. Their two grown sons have ditched them for wider horizons. She is filling the void with Netflix, dark chocolate and Cabernet Sauvignon.