FORGOING THE SHORT-TERM SALE

One day in late summer, I was at my lake house, and I asked my wife if she wanted to go on a boat ride with the kids. She declined, saying that she couldn’t because she was making gravy for Sunday dinner and she had to watch it to make sure it didn’t burn. I suggested she turn down the heat and put a diffuser underneath it—after all, we would only be out for an hour. She said she needed a new diffuser and was having a hard time finding one.

Fast-forward to the middle of the next week: I was in Boston for a meeting, walking in Copley, when I passed a Williams-Sonoma store. I remembered that Patricia needed the diffuser, so I swung back to see if Williams-Sonoma carried them. I asked one of the store clerks if they had diffusers. “Of course,” she said, and went to the back room to get me a couple. I was waiting happily, thrilled that the store had them and that I had remembered, when the clerk returned and informed me that they were out of stock. Without skipping a beat, she told me that I should go to Shaw’s because she remembered seeing them there the last time she was shopping.