Radio Shack: You've got questions...
- We've got RC cars
- We've got cellphones
- We've got blank stares
I've long needed a way to quantify my mounting frustration with Radio Shack. Today, as I trudged home from my local store empty handed, it came to me. My absolute measure of Radio Shack's fall from grace is fractions of a radio. That is, if one were to start with a clean slate, an empty desk with no tools or parts, what fraction of a radio could one construct using only that which one could purchase from Radio Shack?
The answer to that question seems to be a strictly decreasing function. Some of Radio Shack's recent tragic product discontinuations include: MOSFETs, LED detectors, their entire catalog of digital integrated circuits (except for TTL quad buffers for some reason), most of their analog integrated circuits, crystal oscillators, proto board, DTMF dialers (that was a long time ago, okay?)... the list goes on and on.
Today I walked to Radio Shack in search of a particular item: a single magnetic reed switch. I didn't see them. A helpful Radio Shack employee saw my plight (and my empty hands) and immediately concluded that I needed a cellphone. Though my wife would surely agree, this was presently not the case.
The woman looked up magnetic reed switches in the computer, and asked "Is this a security product?" I pondered for a moment and conceded that it could be used in a security system, though I had no intention of using it that way. Discontinued.
And though each time leave disappointed, I claim each time that this time I'm going to swear off Radio Shack for good, something gives me a glimmer of hope. Somewhere in every Radio Shack there is a high shelf, usually wedged in a corner of the store between UHF antenna mounts and soldering guns, above last year's model RC car. On that shelf are aged, leaking bottles of ferric chloride acid, used for etching printed circuit boards. If you ask a Radio Shack employee where it is, he will react with incomprehension, then flickering recognition, and finally disbelief. "You use that stuff?"
I never buy it there. If I did, they wouldn't restock it, and then I'd never go back.
Radio Shack. You've got questions, we've got mutherfucking ferric chloride.