I've never owned an iron. You know, the kind for ironing clothes. I make it a point to buy clothes that don't wrinkle easily, and when I wash them, I take them out of the dryer pronto so they don't get all creased up. The very few times I've needed an iron, I've just used my mom's, but now I'm in Atlanta and my mom's irons are in Minnesota. I needed to buy an iron.
I started out shopping online and didn't find that many irons to choose from with free Prime shipping. At least not in the price range I wanted to spend. I hardly ever use an iron; I'm not spending $150 for one. So I went through reviews and finally found one I liked. Yea! But it was sold by a third party and priced higher than it should be. A little searching showed Home Depot had it for $10 less. Okay, so I'd run over there when I returned from MN and pick one up. No problem.
No problem until I went to check that the store closest to my house carried it. Discontinued. In a red swath across the iron I wanted, it said Discontinued.
In fact, almost every iron they had was marked discontinued. I finally found one that was available only to learn that it wasn't carried in stores. Online only. That wasn't cool since I needed it the next day. I finally found it in JC Penney, but that store is about 20-25 minutes from my house and I was recovering from bronchitis. I didn't feel like driving that far.
I started looking for a different iron. I had only a few parameters. I wanted it to be under $40, have auto shutoff, and a retractable cord.
I'd had curtain rods installed in the bedrooms and while I was able to use my curtains from my Minnesota home in two of the bedrooms, I had to buy brand new ones for my current bedroom. I went from one huge window to three normal sized ones. I also found a totally awesome sheer with a mid-century modern design. Bright colored and cool beyond measure, but in need of having the creases ironed out.
I did finally find a $35 iron that fit my needs. It wasn't the most wonderful thing ever, but it did what I needed it to do and I got my curtains up.
But honestly, I couldn't believe how hard it was to find an iron. I thought I was in the minority with the clothes that don't need ironing, but maybe I'm not. Maybe they're hardly selling any irons now? That's the only reason I can come up with for the level of difficulty this purchase presented. I suppose if I wanted to spend more money or could have waited for it to ship, it might have been a different story, but honestly, I never dreamed it would take as much time as it did.
But the good news is that the next time I need an iron--probably 10 years from now--I'll have one.
