Friday, February 15, 2008

Lesson Learned - Local is Better Even When It's Not Food

I compromised today on my resolve to drive less and avoid single purpose trips and then learned it was a mistake. My old portable radio that I use when I'm working out died a couple of weeks ago. I kept hoping to get it to work again because it was only about 12 years old (!) but had finally decided I needed a new one. I assumed that one of the big box electronics stores would have a better selection and I had very specific criteria - as small as possible, basically. Having waited for two weeks for some other excuse to drive out to Best Buy and that general area by the airport, I finally decided to just go out there today (10 miles one way). But, their selection was miserable and they did not have a single one I was willing to buy. Tried an athletic store that was in the same scary assortment of big boxes, but with the same result. On the way home, I thought maybe I'd just stop at Fred Meyers to see what they had. And, sure enough, they had two that were both better than any of the others - and cheaper! So, I could have gone to the much closer, locally-owned store and found my radio. Sigh.

Ah, I see that I have been tagged. I'll give this some thought and respond.

1 comment:

Ann said...

i'm sure there was a little repair shop in your 'hood that you could have walked to that fixes those old radios. :) love those shops... remind me to tell you of the vacuum repair store near us.