I just want a tablesaw. That's a simple thing, right? So I went to my local Home Depot, and they didn't have one. I went back every week for months and months before I said, "Okay, they aren't getting any tablesaws." I tried to order it to ship to the store. Nope, can't do that where I live. I tried to order it to ship to my house. Nope, can't do that either. I physically went to HD and asked to special order it. Sorry, we don't do that here. We only do that in every single other location, but not here.
So, I went online to Lowe's. Nope.
So, I went online to Wal-Mart Nope.
....Amazon- Nope
....CPO Outlets- Nope
KMart, Sears, Northern Tool, eBay, Menard's... Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope. Literally probably 10 other websites- Nope x 10
Mind you, now, for each of these I have to go to their site, add it to my cart, go to Paypal, log in, get back to the merchant site, click "Buy the darned thing" (okay, so maybe it doesn't say that, but it should) only to get the big red box "I'm sorry we ship everywhere except where you live. Please disregard our banner that says we ship internationally because you, my friend, are neither US or international. You live in limbo." (again, maybe I'm ad-libbing a bit, but you get the point.) Seriously, folks, I found one place that ships to countries that I had to look up on the map to see if they were even real countries, but nope- not to me.
You see, folks, I live in the US Virgin Islands. We are kind of a US territory, and kind of not. Sometimes we show up under "United States" and sometimes "Virgin Islands, US" and sometimes "US Virgin Islands." Sometimes we show as a state, sometimes a country, and sometimes there is no option at all- we just plain do not exist.
FINALLY, I went to (vendor name witheld for their protection), and OMG!!!! They have US Virgin Islands!!!! But wait- this sometimes happens and at the end they say, "Sorry, but we don't ship to your area- should you want it shipped to the moon, however, we can do that." Not this time- this time it let me check out!!!! I even got an email confirmation!!!! HOORAY!!!! ... and then it happened. (checks email) "Hi, this is _____, and we are sorry, but we don't ship to you, so we have issued you a refund. Should you ever move somewhere like the US, Canada, the Moon, etc., we would be happy to ship to you." UGH!!!
So I went to another vendor, name also witheld for their protection, and agian- checked out, ordered, got confirmation. YES!!!! They ship here!!!! Then the wait began. It showed as order processing for 6 days. Finally I contacted them. "Oh, I see the problem, you don't live in the US, Canada, Mexico, Uzbekistan, Takministan, or the 200 other countries we do ship to.... Nope, you live in a vacuum, neither state nor country, so we can't ship to you." So they were supposed to refund me.
Here's where it gets fun. I never got my $490 refund. I contacted them- "Sir, we refunded you last week." It turns out that they operate under multiple names. The first vendor that refunded me is the same company under another name. Now they show a refund, but I can't convince them that I ordered twice- once from each of their two companies, and they still owe me $490.
I would like to thank CPO outlets for at least working with me and TRYING to ship here, but in the end, they won't take a non-US credit card. At least they had an awesome customer service and tried. (This is not the one above that still owes me money- just an honorable mention.) By the way, a non-US PayPal is the same thing as a non-US credit card apparently.
I'm done. Thank you for letting me vent. If you need me, I'm going to be over here in the corner sobbing. I fly to the states in another week and I'm going to buy one and ship it to myself. I hope it finds me. If any of you amateur astronomers are looking at the moon through your telescope, and happen to see a Skilsaw worm drive tablesaw up there, it's probably mine.