Once in a while you realise you have a need for a Miscellaneous Arbitrary Item that you don’t possess, and wish to obtain one quickly, for (almost) immediate use.

The other day I experienced this phenomenon, and in my case the Miscellaneous Arbitrary Item was a tape measure.  While in abundance in our hose, spring-loaded retractable tape measures with 2m stand-outs are not exactly the nicest thing to hold against one’s delicate torso while measuring one’s chest size for a new suit, for example.  Their laminated fibreglass construction and reinforced design are counterproductive when it comes to measuring anything but a straight line.

Knowing there’s a branch of Boots reasonably close to home, I quickly searched boots.com for ‘tape measure’.  Nothing.  How about ‘tape’?  Thirty results, none of which provide a measuring facility.  Strange.  A few clicks, and I arrived at the Boots weight management page – surely a tape measure here.  And success – partially.  An image of a woman measuring herself using exactly the kind of thing I am looking to buy!

But where could I buy it?  After what must have been seconds of staring at the page for a clue, and then a few more seconds performing the same website searches as before (just in case it was user error), I decided to email customer services.

Says I (pretty much):

I notice on the Boots.com website at (such-and-such-a-webpage) a woman is pictured measuring herself with a tape measure.  Do you sell tape measures?

The reply (again, pretty much):

We sell one tape measure, the ELC Tape Measure.  Please advise if you would like store availability and stock levels.

I must honestly admit to being more than a little surprised.  While I hadn’t specifically asked whether Boots sold tape measure that were intended for a particular purpose, I had assumed the context of my question — mentioning the weight management webpage, and a woman measuring herself — would have enabled the Boots customer service representative to do a little more than find the first thing matching the search term ‘tape measure’.

Perhaps this person thought I had not bothered doing a search myself, and would rather email someone asking them to search for me, and then reply with the results.

Or maybe this person really thought I had overlooked a toy tape measure when performing my search, and would actually be quite happy measuring myself with something the size (and probably weight) of a garden mains extension reel.

And how accurate are the markings on toy measuring tools anyway?  As accurate as toy hammers are weighty?

You know what they say… pay peanutes, get monkeys.  Although a monkey wouldn’t have been able to reply to my email, which may have slightly reduced any potential for eye-rolling and ire at Boots when I sent a reply back to them.

In their defense, Boots did, in a further email, apologise for the ‘confusion’ and set the record straight by stating that they indeed do not sell tape measures.

I couldn’t be bothered to ask why not, while pointing at the now-ironic image on their website.