Supply chain supply chain, supply chain. Other than winter weather swooping across the continent, it's about all the news has to offer, it seems. Be afwaid, be vewy vewy afwaid! There might be a wascally wabbit somewhere out there.
We've gotten just a tad spoiled, admit it folks. We can go into any store we choose and find fully stocked shelves with so much stuff we can't possible register it all, much less make the most intelligent decisions about which items to take home with us. The assumption is that always, always we will take home with us the exact things we came to get, probably even more. It's what lists are for, so we won't forget them, since that's been the only impediment to our full satisfaction.
So now there are spaces on some of the shelves, so what? We're not starving. Not the "right" bread? Get another kind, or some other thing to make our sandwiches from. Only 5 brands of bacon instead of 17? Awwwwww, golly gee. Wrong brand/flavor of yogurt? Ice cream? Soup? Just look a bit farther along the shelf. Or even switch to cheese and chili this week.
I found on one recent trip that a couple sections in the toilet paper section were empty. It's not like the beginning of the pandemic when everybody tried to stock up with a 6 month supply and none was in the stores, period. No, a particular brand that day was low on a particular variety so two different size packages were out. You could still take home enough ass-wipe to clog your sewer system for a month. With 15 people flushing the toilets all day.
The only thing I wanted that had no real substitute was during a trip to Michael's. I'd gotten a gift card for X-mas, and since I pass it on the way to the credit union that's a "sister" to my credit union in Minnesota that still handles my finances while I spend them, I decided to stop in for some wire. I have a project in mind and need to practice "proof of concept" without spending a whole lot of money. This means I need 20 gauge copper wire, and the club didn't happen to have open supply room hours at that exact time.
I also needed silver-colored french earring wires, the kind that aren't sterling, for when I'm trying other things out and am not interested in the expensive .925 stuff. The supply room only sells actual sterling in anything that's silver color, not anything substituting for it. That way you know if it came from our supply room it's .925. Before selling what you make from it, you can with confidence label it as such (for 35 cent's per tag, plus a sterling jump ring to attach it with. ) I don't always do that with gifts, but will indicate whether it's sterling or just silver filled or coated or colored.
The right kind of ear wires I found with no problem. That section is fully stocked, but many neighboring shelves were bare or mostly so. The copper wire they had was way too high a gauge, aka 26 and 28, and much too flimsy for the project, since it involves combining beads on wires with torches for making head pins and for soldering. The beads will be glass - sometimes painted - and I have to be sure they don't melt if they are close to where their wire gets heated, which means applying a kind of clay to keep the copper from shooting the heat down the full length (2") of the wire. If it does, either I switch to jewelry glue, highly frowned on by the club, or find some other solution. But the wire has to be 20g, small enough to go through pretty much all glass beads, and sturdy enough to support them. Providing the design works, that is, so back at proof-of-concept stage.
As I was paying for only my ear wires, the clerk of course asked if I found everything OK. Nope. I explained, following with with my own question: did he know when they might be getting more in? Therein lies a tale. They do get deliveries twice a week, though I forget now which days he said they come in. Trouble is, they never know until their stock is unloaded from the truck just what they will get. Last delivery was still Christmas stuff. You know, in mid January. Even a sale won't be much help with that. But hey, I should stop back in every now and then and look for the wire I need. One of these days the right ship from China (most likely) will dock, unload the right container box, which will get loaded on a truck with a driver and travel through good weather until the Michael's store by the credit union will have 20g copper wire again. Uff da! I get tired just thinking of all the links in that supply chain.
I thanked him for the information, not bothering to explain that either I'll hit the club during supply room hours or go online. Either will provide me with what I need in reasonable speed, and meantime I can while away hours of not-being-able-to-sleep time with revising my concept and trying to anticipate problems and solutions, not to mention color schemes for the beads needed.
Ever try to tie a bow with wire and get it to look like it's tied ribbon? Or get it to tie tightly around several loose wires tightly enough to hold them in place for, well, hopefully years? All the rest of the concept is simple, easy peasy. But my soldering skills are rudimentary, even though I've just had two workshops that have improved them - just not quite for the kind of project that's demanding that I figure it out RIGHT NOW. (Amazing how demanding those nebulous ideas can be until the problems are all solved.) Both were basically "here's another thing these new skills can let you do" workshops, and that's how I learned about the clay stopping the heat, since the soldering must be done while the bead is on the wire less than an inch away. Even then, the wire must after torching be put in a "pickle pot" to clear away the icky left from torching, and then put in a vibrator to polish and harden the wires. Now if all you have is wires, that's just fine. Add fancy glass beads, and this time I do mean fancy, selling with a price per bead rather than per strand, so I have to worry about heat and any knocking around or chemicals that might either break off a tiny piece or etch off paint. So... Thinking still required. Then practice for proof of all the concept parts and the order of assembly. Then hopefully make something saleable.
Whew!
I'll find that wire elsewhere this time. The empty shelf issue is nothing compared to figuring out how to make my end project properly. And that's the kind of thing which is helping keep life interesting through all this pandemic and politics and empty shelves and aging and fighting with a different computer system and... and... and.
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