Three items related to shortages. In the same week my wife's alternator bit the dust, my catalytic converter was brazenly stolen overnight, on the street right in front of my house. Apparently this is happening so often the past year my insurance company has hired a third party to deal with it. Her car was in the shop for an extra week, on top of the usual repair time, because the mechanic couldn't get a hold of a replacement alternator. After waiting some time I finally told him to go with a more expensive OEM part, and took the price hit. Much more expensive than it should have been. Same with the catalytic converter. Took extra time to track down a replacement, and the mechanic said I lucked out with timing as it was. The week after part prices were due to go up by double digit percentages. I asked both mechanics about these shortages, and they said they were regular occurrences lately.

Unrelated to cars, I purchases a few ceramic hanging baskets for strawberries. I've used fiber baskets for years, but I'm tired of replacing them as the birds pull them apart for nests pretty quickly. The pots I got were glazed blue, but the bottoms were not. Nothing a bit of spray paint wouldn't fix. I went to lowes to pick up some cans, and the cage of paint was 85% empty. When I went to get a few new drip irrigation mister nozzles, the whole irrigation section had been rearranged and condensed and the selection was significantly smaller than even 2 months ago.