After I gave my last major presentation, I purchased a suitable flash drive to store my documents. It did not have loaded to it. Maybe one PowerPoint and one or two Word Documents. No pictures of travel or my infant grandchildren. Nothing irreplaceable. Many come with access to keychains. I never lose my car or house keys. I do lose flash drives. The loop that enables placement on a ring has the same plastic that makes the case of the device. Every one I have ever owned snapped off the host key ring, most lost forever. As a result, the last two that I've purchased, I keep in a coin purse. One in the interseat compartment of my car, the other in my pocket with the coins.
Unfortunately, my last two coin pouches came to my possession as freebies offered at expo tables. One a sturdy coarse material, the other a lighter nylon fabric. The cloth does well. The seams do not. Each has separated. I repair each with packing tape or duct tape, only to have the seam separate somewhere else. One pouch I designated as my auto first aid kit, supplying it with Band-Aids, salve, and tape. It sits in the interseat compartment of my car. The other seemed to do well in my pocket.
I looked for the flash drive. Not there. Lots of coins. An Eagles money holder with a few small folded bills. A micro tool set too innocuous to get a TSA inspector suspicious. But no flash drive. Fortunately, nothing on it of irreplaceable value, or even immediately needed content. I looked at the cloth pouch. Another seam separation, large enough for the flash drive, too small for the currency clip. These pocket pouches are not easy to replace, but duct tape won't suffice. I don't think sewing is the way to go either. I'll keep my eye open for a replacement.
The flash drive should be replaced. Needing an afternoon escape, I drove not far to Target, expecting both small electronics and a suitable coin purse. I found no coin purses. They carried flash drives. I walked to the back of the store where a few hung from hooks. Target has been losing shoppers, with multiple pundits promoting their pet reasons. DEI policy, scarce employees, inferior selections, and prices higher than Walmart. Don't know about DEI, but the others seem true. While my storage needs are few, I really did not want to settle for less than 64G. Lowest price, about $12 had 32G. Anything above that, much more costly, and only one brand of somewhat shoddy appearing devices.
I left purchasing nothing. Back to my laptop. Search Flash Drive. Now Google could at least tell me where to buy one. A few retail options. Staples, Best Buy, Walmart, Walgreens. The drug store had a minimal selection at a high price. Staples looked good. staples.com looked very inviting. I drove there. No better than Target. A few 32G items for about $12, everything else much more. I did not want to drive to Walmart and have shunned Best Buy based on some past experiences.
Online shopping seemed a good option. Amazon had oodles of choices at favorable prices. I would need to buy other things to avoid a shipping charge that would add a significant increment to my flash drive purchase. There are things that I'd considered, including the coin purse and some tissue box holders, but unlikely to get me to the Amazon threshold.
One of the suggestions that popped up is temu.com, that controversial Chinese firm which trades reliability against low prices. I've bought things from them before. Most good buys, one item unusable. They had a lot of flash drives. Up to now, mine have always had a USB A connector. At Temu they displayed dual connectors, one A for my laptop, one C for my cell phone. Storage 256G. Price $13 + $3 shipping. While Temu probably has a tariff expense as a Chinese retailer, they apparently have an American warehouse which either avoids the tariff surcharge or it has already been paid by the importer. I can handle $16.
Placing the order took more effort than placing one at Amazon, Wayfair, or Walmart, my usual sources of e-commerce. It went through. I expect the item to arrive within a week. No urgency on my part. However, Temu has a reputation for items not arriving at all. I risk $16.
I wonder about some of my local stores, though.
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