I like to tease Doug when he insists on calling a business to ask questions about inventory. My theory is that when retail employees say “hold on” they stand in place, chat with a co-worker, pick the phone back up and say “we’re out.” Retail employees don’t care if you waste a trip or if you don’t visit their store. Today, I tried to find out the hours for the Marble Slab on Market Square that has Twitter on a sugar buzz. The Marble Slab website doesn’t acknowledge the store exists. The Marble Slab at Turkey Creek politely told me the phone number for Market Square’s store. I knew I had the right number when I called, because they answered the phone with “Market Square.” Not Marble Slab or hello or anything useful. After making sure that I wasn’t talking to a pay phone in the middle of the street, I asked the store hours. “Um, uh, well . . . I know we open at 11 and we close at 11. Or 10. Or maybe 9. I don’t know when we close.” I asked to speak to someone who does know. Employee number two got on the phone. “Well, we really don’t have posted hours. We just close.” Dude. What are they putting in the ice cream over there? I thought the Wests were long gone. Maybe they need to invest in an answering machine so they don’t have to deal with confusing phone calls asking when they close.