Check Your Local Listings!

Twice: Once when I was a kid and was twirling a baton in a parade and another time when my kids were small. My youngest daughter wanted a specific doll for Christmas and Santa (at the mall) had promised to put it under the tree for her. Unfortunately, this doll was all but impossible to find and every store we checked was sold out. At the time, we lived in Wisconsin and tried stores from near our home all the way to Chicago -- no luck. Out of desperation, we asked the consumer help team of our local news to help us to locate the doll. It even took them a while (Santa left our daughter some other presents and an IOU on Christmas morning), but they located a wholesaler who was willing to sell us the beloved doll! They did a nice story and we were all on the news.