The Department of Almost
From Abracaslop, the fictional encyclopedia
We bring you closer to things that remain unavailable.
The Department began as a filing error: someone ordered a department store, and received a department for storing things. It has spent the intervening fictional years meeting both interpretations halfway.
Its divisions are Domestic Improbability, Applied Mild Inconvenience, Unnecessary Hospitality, and Office Escape. Each imaginary object is assigned a file. No division manufactures or ships it.
Department motto: NOTHING SHIPS. It appears more often than a competent filing system would require.
Its founding charter says that an object may be emotionally convincing without becoming physically available. This is called the Almost Principle.
A rumor says the catalog is a portal. The archive confirms only that two columns occasionally share a margin. The difference is the entire story.