THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, March 2, 1996 TAG: 9603020001
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A11 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: George Hebert
LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
Once again I find myself puzzled by the problem of things I set out to buy but can't find. This time, a clock search stands out.
Seems like I'm running into blank stares and blank shelves whenever I set out in the stores to buy some specific item. That is, when I don't want any substitutes or near-things.
One time it's buttermilk for something Donna wants to cook, not the reduced-fat versions. But what I look for is nowhere to be found. There is only non-fat, non-fat, non-fat.
Another time it's one of those filing boxes that holds a lot of papers and is shaped like a book with one half-rounded side and, like a book, can be stored upright on a bookshelf. Old-timey offices used to be full of them; my father had several. Recently I thought I could use one. But find such a thing? I certainly couldn't, though maybe I've been to the wrong places.
Then there was the time a week or so ago when I went out to price a bathroom item that, according to a plumber I consulted, should have a certain measurement to match the space occupied by the fixture we want to replace. In a big store that sells tons and tons of such furnishings, I discovered that nothing had the required dimension. Ours, it seems, is an old-fashioned fitting. I was told my only course was to beat the bushes for a dealer that hadn't got rid of such oldies yet.
But, like I say, one of the most baffling of my latter-day hunts for elusive items was the pursuit of a clock. An ordinary travel alarm clock, the kind you wind up.
We had one but it was old, bulky and we thought we might get something neater and newer.
We considered a travel alarm a must on trips even though you can arrange for wake-up calls in most overnight lodgings, or the establishment will have a digital clock you can set for a morning alarm. But these were expedients we felt we couldn't fully trust. Front-desk people can forget. Electricity can go off. There's a chance you will miss out on some item on a morning schedule, perhaps something as important as an early start.
Having your own reliable alarm gadget right with you is a prudent precaution, too, if you're going to stay in some friend's or relative's place and want to arrange, unobtrusively, for getting out of bed at a time of your own choosing.
So we set out to find a good, old-fashioned travel clock.
And what do we encounter in showcase after showcase, on shelf after shelf? Nothing but battery-run versions. In all kinds of size variations, with all kinds of decorative motifs and in several handy conformations.
But batteries, even those with the longest lives, for sure-fire awakenings for years down and on the road?
What with possible extended storage between trips, or simply exhaustion in frequent travel over many months, battery-run alarms would seem to be even more risky than electric plug-ins. Either can go dead, but batteries have more reasons and opportunities. And the death might come when you least expect it, or can least afford to lie late abed. Even if you find out the batteries are gone, or about to go, it may not be convenient to correct the situation.
Where did any manufacturer of travel alarms ever get the notion that it would be a neat idea to build such products with fallible electric innards, or anything other than good old, always trustworthy, wind-up mechanisms?
Beats me.
Out of stock. Out of style. Out of (the store's) mind.
But then maybe this is a case of my being too wound up. MEMO: Mr. Hebert, a former editor, lives in Norfolk.
by CNB