Bad Dream 201 -- Paucity of Hardware

First a description of threaded metal fasteners.  There are well over a hundred different sizes and compositions of these things.  A good hardware store will have 3/4-inch panhead cad-plated metal screws with a thread measurement of 1/4 - 20.  And another bin of the same size in stainless steel and another bin of round headed screws of the same measurement of both materials.  Then another with hex heads. THEN another complete set set of bins of 1-inch metal screws, and another set of 2-inch screws and on and on.  And a really fine hardware store will have the almost identical set of fasteners with a thread size of 1.4 - 24.

Then there's a completely different set of bins for metric sizes.  And another set of bins for wood screws of various sizes, head shape, Phillips head or slotted head, etc. etc. etc.

Such a complete inventory normally takes up at least one complete aisle on both sides.  And for most projects, there is only one bin out of all of these that will have what you need...

In my dream, I am at one of my favorite hardware stores.  I've always liked it in large part because they always seem to have what I needed.  But when I started looking for a particular type screw for a project I was working on, I find that the store has reorganized their shelving -- and that instead of the double aisle of threaded fasteners I was expecting, there was only a single set of bins for sale -- taking up only a couple of feet of aisle space.  So the chances that I would find the screw I was looking for were practically zero.  

I understood that the rearranging had been done to increase profits.  If they could get away with only this single set of bins rather than the 8 or 10 sets of bins they used to have, it would open up a lot of floor space so they could display and sell more hand tools, work gloves, flower pots, grass seed and fertilizer and weed killer, etc. etc.  

I looked feverishly through a couple of the bins and confirmed that they didn't have anything that would work for my project.  I looked around in a few other spots in the store to see if they had anything else that I might want to purchase, but didn't find anything.  

So I understood their motive for making the change but I felt cheated that the store was now practically useless.  And that deprived me of the satisfaction of finding the hardware I needed.