Why Yes Sir, That's How Commerce Works

[Sparklyturtle]

Back about 2007 there was a heat wave with average daily temperatures here of 107 degrees F over about a week and a half. I live outside of Portland, Oregon. There was an incredible run on air conditioners, which isn't surprising. It's usually nowhere near this hot during our summers, which is a good thing since we don't have air conditioning in our house. Usually we don't need it, and sure, occasionally we have to sweat in summer, but our summers are short here. I also have one of those tiny fans on my desk, which is currently stirring up the air in my home office.

[SteeleDragon78]

my apt has the ac units in a bumpout in the ceiling. yesterday the drip pan drain clogged up and i woke to the sound of it pissing on a towel i dropped after my shower. 2 hrs after calling maint it had filled one of my small pots by just over a quart. the maint guy said he fixed it. but didnt. i cant deal with it again till friday when im off. so i get to listen to the drip sound all day. i would get a window unit, but im on the 2nd floor, and i dont trust the windows to hold one securely.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Air conditioners were a hot selling item yesterday.

Ha. Haha. You'll never in a million gazillion years see what I did there.

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

He complained tripping over a fan and I said with a perfectly straight face: Nobody expects a fanish imposition!

👎

On a related note, I stopped at the swamp today for some holiday necessities (okay, beer, which I could've gotten at about a million other places in this town) and noticed it to be even more swamp-ish as usual. The cashier who rang up my beer told me the air conditioning was all assed up and had broke down yesterday. I wouldn't have known unless she told me; the a/c never worked in that place. There was one time the temperature up in the break room was nearing 100 F. I spent my breaks in my car with the a/c cranked up that day.

[Slave to the Phone]

So, because of this thread, I did something I always wanted to do, and it was unplanned!

I pulled a couple of fans out of the shed and brought them inside so I could test them and see if they had died of heat death. Due to me leaving them on the floor, and my sweetie not paying attention, he tripped on one.

I FINALLY managed a Monty Python reference right at the moment instead of an hour later.

He complained tripping over a fan and I said with a perfectly straight face: Nobody expects a fanish imposition!

He's looking up divorce attorneys now, LOL!!!

[Minflick]

My husband loved the box fans, and I always thought they were the most useless things on the planet. I have a big metal blade fan in storage (it's too large for the apartment) and a smaller one for my bedroom. They cost more, but they move a LOT more air with those blades.

[Food Lady]

I feel in desperate need of a portable but in April and May I didn't know I would. A wall unit comes with the apartment and I did test it. It was blowing cold. I just didn't realize until the heat wave that the difference between the air going in and blowing out was not great enough. It's about 9 degrees and it should be 15-20. I put in a request and they came and got the unit out today so I have nothing but a fan at the moment. Tomorrow is the holiday and it's going to be brutal. I don't think I'll get a new AC until the weekend. If I get desperate enough I will probably buy whatever I can find. I always did want one for the bedroom anyway.

[Nunavut Pants]

Would it be rude to ask "THEN WHY DIDN'T YOU BUY ONE WHEN YOU WERE HERE YESTERDAY??"

Probably would be. Especially if done while pummeling them about the head and shoulders with a pool noodle.... But it's fun to imagine!!!

[Racket_Man]

Don't these people realize that it's gonna be hot again NEXT summer? A well-maintained air conditioner should last the average person a decade or more, so the $300 or so they spend is gonna break down to less than $30 per year. Same thing with a basic fan. Who can't afford twenty or thirty bucks for a basic stand-up fan?

and that "doing a little planning ahead" by oh maybe having a spare fan around just incase of a failure is a sound life planning lesson????? I have 2 in-window fans and 3 box fans going at all times during the warmer weather. I have an in-window A/C unit in my bedroom that I run when I sleep (not needed all day long and I am trying to keep my utility bill down).

The local Voldy-Mart has basic 20" box fans for like $16.

Yeah I need another window A/C unit for another room but I can live with that for another year.

[Slave to the Phone]

Would it be rude to ask "THEN WHY DIDN'T YOU BUY ONE WHEN YOU WERE HERE YESTERDAY??"

I am a food stamp eligibility worker. I have been told by management that responding to someone yelling "WHY DO I HAVE TO DO THIS AGAIN?!?! YOU ASK FOR THIS EVERY TIME AND ALWAYS MAKE ME COME BACK!!!" is not to say "If we ask you for this every time, maybe you should expect that we will do so again and bring what we will ask for? Apparently, this embarrasses our clients because they have a brief moment where they feel stupid and causes more yelling.

We have lived in self owned homes for longer than 30 years. They have always had central cooling and heating. Once in a while, something would happen at the very worse time of the year and we would be sweating or shivering. Because we live out in the sticks, it could take days to get someone out to look at our unit.

I'm saying this to confess that I have also done emergency runs to big box stores hoping to find something cheap to use until things were fixed. If they didn't have anything suitable, I didn't throw fits, I just moved on.

After our personal emergency was fixed, I donated everything so it wouldn't get shoved to the back of the shed and die of heat death (takes about a year out here) before we needed it again.

[TheWolfEmperor]

Final total for tonight was seven. I'm a little disappointed but if I had been counting how many people asked for pool floats I bet the number would be pretty high

I'm just lucky that I live in an apartment that was once a garage, located next to a river. It still gets hot in here but not oppressive, and it hasn't effected my sleep patterns.

[Pixelated]

"Well when I was here yesterday, you had a bunch of them on a pallette. Did you move them?"

Would it be rude to ask "THEN WHY DIDN'T YOU BUY ONE WHEN YOU WERE HERE YESTERDAY??"

[Monterey Jack]

It was amusing to watch the expression on the guy's face when he realized the great money-saving plan had backfired.

Don't these people realize that it's gonna be hot again NEXT summer? A well-maintained air conditioner should last the average person a decade or more, so the $300 or so they spend is gonna break down to less than $30 per year. Same thing with a basic fan. Who can't afford twenty or thirty bucks for a basic stand-up fan?

[Bandit]

You should always buy a fan or air conditioner at the beginning of May, so when you actually NEED it, you'll HAVE it.

And who wants to take bets on how many of these customers will end up returning their units once the heat wave finally snaps, because it will NEVER BE HOT AGAIN after that?

AND - for double bonus points - will complain on the next heat wave, 3 weeks later, that the store not only has none (or just the $600+ units), and the budget unit they had "rented" is not being restocked until next April.

It was amusing to watch the expression on the guy's face when he realized the great money-saving plan had backfired.

B

[MoonCat]

In past years, by the end of May-early June you couldn't find a window fan or air conditioner around here for love or money. Last couple of years, someone at corporate at several chain stores miraculously realized that "hey, people still buy fans and A/C through the summer! Why didn't we think of this before!?"

So they continue to stock window fans, and we went to a certain orange apron store last week to get a replacement for my sister's bedroom A/C unit. They had 'em, had quite a few in fact. By now, who knows? I'm just gobsmacked that the various stores have finally realized you need to continue to stock these things past June 1st.

[notalwaysright]

I'll be honest, I can think of twice where I've been that person who's staring sadly at an empty shelf when the fans used to be. We had gone years without a hot summer here, and I'd given some fans away when I moved apartments. Anyway, I didn't interact with any employees, just walked to the aisle, was sad, and left. It's my own fault. Last year I saw it was going to be hot for the foreseeable future, and looked around online for cheap window fans. Bullseye had one left at my location so I did the buy online, pick up in store. Then I know it's there.

I can't imagine living in an area with regularly scorching hot summers and being like "I AM HOT. YOU GIVE COOL. WHY NO GIVE?!?! ANGER!"