January 24, 2021: Implications Unforeseen -

My slippers wore out three months early. My yearly pair usually lasts until the weather warms up. 

(It’s a ritual: I get a new pair on sale in the spring, when Slippers Season is ending, and I put them away in a big tub, along with all my cold weather stuff. I have a tiny closet. Tax Day through October: warm weather stuff, including flip flops around the house; rest of the year, cold weather stuff, and slippers).

So I buy a new pair and immediately put them away, and then when I pull the big tub out of the attic to do the biannual* swap, it’s like finding five bucks in a winter coat pocket. Look! New slippers! I completely forgot I had new slippers!!

But, of course, this year I have worn my slippers during most waking hours, causing them to give out early. Fine. Shoe expenditures have been nil, so this can just be a two-sets-of-slippers pandemic.

But no. They are sold out.

Not just Zappo’s, but the makers. They are completely out. They are backordered more than two months.

Possible explanation:  Slipper hoarding is rampant out there.

Second possible explanation:  EVERYBODY’s slippers gave out months early, because everybody is wearing their slippers all day, most days.

Either way, it just seems to me that this was something we could have predicted and planned for, and forestalled, or at least ameliorated. Right? We could have triggered the Slipper Defense Production Act and ramped up when we saw the great Slipper Shortage looming. Something.

I’m not complaining. I’m fine. FINE. I have a bunch of thick socks. This is not a First World Problem, because it is not a problem at all. But it does have a solution, and I am a hardy, uncomplaining soul, and I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.

Coincidentally (or not?), Grape Nuts are also completely sold out. I would not lie to you.

They expect to have them back on the market in the next couple of months... right about when my slippers will reappear.

So the hoarders are sitting around in fresh slippers, eating Grape Nuts? Makes you wonder. How long does it take to make a Grape Nut? Actually, the whole concept of a “grape nut” is pretty weird, once you stop to think about it.

Was I ordering Grape Nuts? No, I just happened to see  somebody whining about the Grape Nut Shortage on Twitter, and I decided to break both stories together, for the good of all concerned.

*I knew it was “biannual,” but I still looked it up, just to double-check. Biannual is twice a year. Biennial is every two years. This is a great improvement over bi-weekly, which can mean EITHER twice a week, or once every two weeks.  Bi-weekly is a snake pit. And don't try to fob me off with semi-monthly. Nobody says semi-monthly.