I went to a bunch of places in Carlsbad today in search of my much-coveted crimson-and-onyx Nintendo DS. It's too bad I didn't want a pink one, because several stores had those. Everyone told me the same story: They're totally sold out, and they don't know when they'll get a substantial shipment of new units, and check back in a few days. Apparently the backlog goes all the way back to Nintendo, which basically means that they can't make DSes fast enough to satisfy demand!
You can see from the photo above that I did manage to track one down! The Sears website (oddly enough) has an in-store pickup option which I checked mostly just for the sake of thoroughness, but was pleasantly surprised when it told me that one was available for pickup—and at my local, um, location at that! I bought it online immediately, went to the store, and picked it up with nary a hitch. Awesome! ^_^v
I also learned a valuable lesson about retail store stock records. At one Best Buy, the girl I talked to checked the stock on the computer and reported that while her store didn't have any DSes, the one in Mira Mesa did. I saw with my own two eyes that it did indeed have several. I called the Mira Mesa location just moments later, and the operator—who was the very definition of customer service—reported less-than-politely that they had none. Not even enough time elapsed between the question and the answer for her to have looked up from her nails to check the stock. The same basic scenario played out at Sears earlier in the day as well. Anyway, said lesson is that you shouldn't take telephone operators' word for it if you're looking for a hard-to-find item. Go to the store and be insistent that they actually physically check for your item. Perhaps this is common sense, but it wasn't for naïve little me...
At least the cosmic balance is restored, and my DS now matches my bedding, my car, and several outfits. All is well. ;)
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