Ah, sweet mystery of Lowe's.

So! I lost the gas cap for the lawn mower last week. Don't ask how ... it just happened. Because I'm an idiot.

I went on line and started looking for replacement caps and found one at Lowe's that looked like it would work. And it was in stock at my local store! So I trucked over to Lowe's and ... no gas cap. I mean, they HAD gas caps, but not the one shown on line that would work for my mower. And, being Lowe's, OF COURSE there was no one available to help me.

You know, Lowe's always had pretty sh*tty customer service. But once Home Depot came to town, several years ago, Lowe's seemed to step up their game. Lately, however, they've been backsliding. You could grow OLD in that store trying to find someone to help you.

ANYway, I grabbed a "universal" gas cap and took it home and of course it didn't fit. So I went back on line, just to prove to myself that the gas cap I had seen earlier was not an illusion.

Nope. Not an illusion. On line and in stock at my local store. So, desperate times (I had a baggie rubber-banded over the top of the gas tank) (NOT the best option when you store your mower in the same general vicinity as your pilot-lit gas furnace) calling for desperate measures, I got tricky. I ordered the part on line and chose the "local store pickup" option.

Ding-ding-ding give the lady a cigar! Twenty minutes later, the local Lowe's was calling me telling me that my part was available for pickup.

Back to Lowe's. I returned the old cap, picked up the new cap, and asked the gal at the customer service desk WHERE, exactly, that particular gas cap was located in the store.

"Aisle 24!" she chirped. So I headed for Aisle 24, determined to find out how I had missed seeing that gas cap when I was there the FIRST time.

Bottom line? That gas cap is obviously stocked somewhere in the store, because they pulled it off the shelf when I ordered it on line, but it was NOT in Aisle 24. And it was not in any aisle that I could find, because I SEARCHED that goddam store. With no help from store employees, of course, because as usual they were nowhere to be found.

But! I took the new cap home and ... it fit! Yay! And someday, I will discover the elusive Aisle of Mystery in Lowe's, the aisle where they stock all the stuff YOU CAN'T FIND.