Putting Manufacturers Out of Business

[kevin_standlee]

I was feeling well enough after lunch to go out for a walk to the train station and back. My current luck of trains held, as a UP empty autorack train bound for Warm Springs rumbled by on track 2. Later, a blood sugar reading of 118 confirmed that the walk did me good.

On the way back, Lisa called. She has had me tracking down a particular model of portable propane-fired soldering iron: the Portasol P-1, which the manufacturer has discontinued. The parts for the P-1 don't fit the new model P-2, and Lisa says the stores aren't carrying the parts for the P-2 anyway because they haven't been made yet. However, almost anyplace online that said that they stocked the P-1 (which she liked better anyway; it fit her hand better, being smaller than the P-2) no longer has it. I found a couple of places that claim to still have it and have tried to order a couple.

Alas, Lisa is very much someone who, when she finds something she likes, needs to buy a lifetime supply of it, because there's a good chance it's about to be discontinued or the manufacturer is going out of business or something like that. One of the reasons I think we'll need to buy a storage container is to buy the cases of products we'll need to buy of anything she likes. (Think, for instance, of a gross of Danskin Style 1331 tights, which (a) she likes and (b) look good on her.)

Comments

[gvdub.livejournal.com]

_darkvictory and I constantly go through the same thing. It seems as if every time we find a product that we like or seems to work particularly well for us, that's pretty much a guarantee that the product will soon be discontinued or the manufacturer will go out of business. We refer to it as being the "anti-consumer". I'm the only person I've ever known who can walk into an electronics store waving cash and prepared to purchase something only to have all the sales droids disappear. It's a gift, I suppose.