Mike had a simple desire. He wanted a lighted skiing pig Christmas decoration. He wanted several of them, actually. Sears had them available, so he placed an online order, choosing in-store pickup. Sears e-mailed him that his order was ready, and he happily drove 40 miles to Sears in winter weather to pick it up. If you’ve ever placed an online order with Sears, you know what happened next.

Look at the photo: if you don’t understand why he would want such a thing, we question your judgement. Heck, we’d keep those up around the Consumerist office year-round if we were able to get our hooves on one, but we can’t. The pigs were very popular and sold out.

We saw the e-mail that Mike received: the other items in his order were listed as “Processing,” but the pigs were ready. He scanned his barcode at the kiosk and waited for the clerk to come out with his pigs. He waited. The clerk came out and scanned the e-mail at the kiosk again. The pigs were not there.

“This wasn’t the first time that the Sears store clerks had no problem in making [me] stand there while they argued about what they were supposed to do on what system to deliver (or not) merchandise on the easy ‘ship to store’ promise,” grumbles Mike. Is a 40-mile round trip and waiting for people and systems to actually communicate worth a skiing pig?

Where did they go? Sears doesn’t know. We wrote to Sears with the facts of what happened and Mike’s order number, but they didn’t answer us. Based on past experiences, a few days after we publish this post, we’ll hear from two or more different departments at Sears offering their assistance without having communicated with each other. None of them will be able to bring the pigs back, of course.

You can still buy the pig decoration online now…for $130 on eBay. Mike paid a little over $25 for the two he ordered.

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