To Be Stuck Inside of San Diego With the Can't Find the Goddamn Parts I Need Blues Again

All I needed was a few tee fittings and some rubber stoppers. Conviently for me, there was a plumbing supply warehouse across from a bar supply warehouse. This should be easy, right?

I called the plumbing supply guys to make sure they had the ½” and ¼” barbed food safe tee fittings that I needed. They did. Perfect. Except when I got there, it turned out that the guy looked up the wrong parts and they had exactly 0 of the ones I wanted in their warehouse. The helfpul saleslady directed me to a hardware store literally across the street. I thanked her and drove over (of course, because I live in Southern California).

This hardware store, Marshall’s Industrial Hardware, was simply awesome. I’m not planning on going back to Home Despot any time soon. I followed the advice of a large sign that said “IF YOU CAN’T FIND SOMETHING PLEASE ASK” and after being handed off once or twice, came to an aisle with some tee fittings. So far so good. Then I ask the guy if the fittings are food safe. He just says they’re made out of nylon, which doesn’t really help.

So, I called the guys listed as the source for the fittings. After waiting on hold for a bit, I found out that they are only distributors and had no idea whether or not the fittings were food safe. The lady on the phone tried her damnedest to find out, but handed me to off the manufacturer when she couldn’t. Equipped with the manufacturer’s phone number and the model number of the part, I found light at the end of the tunnel. The guy that answered knew right away. In fact, someone had just asked him if these fittings were food safe. You might think that if this question comes up so frequently, that they would make it more visible, but I digress.

On to the stoppers. We specifically needed Rabbit Stoppers, for reasons detailed in the previous post. The bar supply place down the street didn’t have them so I went to BevMo where they only came in two packs. We wanted to color code each slot with a different colored bottle stopper. The problem with the two-packs is that we would have duplicates. So, I called up Crate & Barrel and found that they had plenty of single stoppers in stock. Great! Except I showed up and realized that they only had one color. When things don’t go according to plan, you change your plans. I decided that having different colors was stupid, we never wanted to do that, and that a single color was really the best idea.

Now, the good news! After running around all day we are incredibly close to having all the parts. We’ve spent $300 so far, can we stay under our $500 budget? Pretty please with a cherry on top, stay tuned to find out!