When I couldn't find what I wanted on the Internet, and then had to go to the Internet to get it.

Yesterday I went to the Internet to find a quote I wanted to include in the wedding card I am giving to my niece, who is getting married tomorrow. I couldn't find the quote anywhere. I knew the book it came from. I remembered keywords. Nothing. I tried all the tricks I knew to find it. Still nothing. How can that be? The Internet has everything, right?

Suddenly I HAD to find that quote so I decided to go on the road in an attempt to run down the physical book. I had a general idea where the quote resided within the book. Now all I had to do was get my hands on a physical copy. I hold library cards to two library systems, both of them cooperate with Overdrive to supply their patrons with free e-books. I started there. Nope, neither of the libraries had the physical book or the e-book.

Next I got in my car to drive to the neighboring town's used store. I live in a bookstore desert. We don't even have a used bookstore anymore. Anyway, I hoped I'd only have to drive a few miles out of my way to find the book, A Woman of Independent Means by Elizabeth F. Hailey, published in 1978, but made popular by a mini-series in the 1990s. It was a long shot, I knew, but I had hope in my heart.

Well, to make a long story short, I ended up driving to three used bookstores in the Tacoma area and two regular bookstores. Nothing. On my way home, I even stopped at Goodwill, which irritably doesn't organize their books by author. They organize their books by a method I will call "random". I looked through all of them. Nothing. I drove home empty-handed.

Back to the Internet, this time to get a PDF of the book if I would just sign up for an account. I did that and then found that this source also organized their books by "random", or else their search tool wasn't working. I cancelled my account.  It was not worth my time. Though, by now, I had wasted about four hours of my time in total.

Finally, I had to purchase the ebook because, remember by now I HAD to have the quote. So this is my story of how I couldn't find something on the Internet and then had to go to the Internet to get it. Sigh.

By the way, below is the quote I wanted. Now when I publish it, it will finally be on the Internet. Ha!