The World is on Back Order

Several weeks ago, I detailed how several of the high-ticket appliances at Chez Carlino conspired to break down and subsequently drain whatever emergency reserve funds we had. First the washing machine refused to forward to the spin cycle. Then the dishwasher determined it would cease washing dishes and utensils.

And finally, just in time for summer, the burner elements on our grill rusted out and broke apart like a picture window being smashed by a 2 X 4.

The first two I managed to replace without much difficulty, although the dishwasher like several million other pieces of merchandise across the country was on a three-week back order.

But that was a momentary lapse in time compared to the Seinfeld-like vignette of buying a grill. The bride who does more research prior to purchasing anything over $50 than most scientists developing a new vaccine, spent hours looking at various models and even fashioned an Excel file, which charted price and features comparisons. I personally went to Home Depot, Lowe’s and two local hardware stores to examine their respective inventories.

I had a certain price point in mind and none of the above either matched it or had anything close to what I was looking for in stock. “Check back in a couple of weeks,” I was told.

As an avid griller, I was not going to wait until mid-July to fire up burgers and steaks. It was bad enough my gym had been shuttered since mid-March and my town pool is still debating whether to open for the summer. There are certain things I simply will not wait for.

But it gets better.

We belong to a national buying club and we found a high-end grill that was advertised for roughly $300 less than retail. So, we placed our order and waited for an email announcing the delivery date.

And waited. And waited. And waited.

Finally, I called up and demanded to know the status. I was told that none of the storage facilities had the model in stock and expected a delivery in 10 weeks. Let me repeat that TEN weeks. That meant we would get our grill in or around Labor Day.

Nope, not gonna happen.

By providence, our neighbor came over and asked to borrow a shovel to plant flowers. I say providence because he is an ordained orthodox priest and, in any event, he had just purchased a grill from a hardware store in a neighboring town, for which they assembled and delivered free of charge.

The next morning, I went bright and early, picked out a model, paid for it and six hours later it was sitting in my backyard.

The good news is that our supermarket had plenty of grill meats on hand.

Not one package of burgers or hot dogs on back order.