Like yesterday, I spent most of my day Christmas shopping. Christmas shopping is always time-consuming, but even more so when it’s done online. Why? Sometimes it’s because . . .
- No matter how hard you look, the thing you want simply cannot be had, but you can’t stop trying until you’ve looked everywhere. You’d give up much sooner if driving were involved, but you’re already used to letting the computer have far too much of your time. This exercise in futility goes something like this: Maybe at this store’s website? (No.) But what about that one? (No!) Okay, but surely this store will have it? (NO!) Ah, I know just the one! (NO YOU DON’T! YOU CANNOT HAVE IT!).
- Yes, the thing you want can be had . . . in 17 million varieties. Good luck choosing exactly the right one!
- You want it in green, but they don’t have the right size in green, so you think maybe blue would be good, but the blue is bizarrely twice the price. If you’re willing to drive to Albuquerque to pick it up, you can get it in grey, but do you really want grey, and is it worth the drive to Albuquerque? If only you could talk yourself into the yellow, because they’d ship the yellow tomorrow. You know you don’t want the yellow and that there is no way you will ever order the yellow, but it’s still there in your mind, a phantom option.
- You scroll and you scroll until you find exactly what you want, only to discover at the last possible moment that the shipping is ten times the price of the item and the item won’t ship until next century. Do you remember which website it was that had the next best thing, because that second-choice option is looking top-notch now, right? No? Too bad! Time to start over.
- You must join the secret society to place an order, but first you need a verification code which will be sent by e-mail. You wait and you wait, but the e-mail never arrives. Never! The secret society has rejected you.
- You need six things. Store A has items 1, 4, and 5. Store B has items 2, 3, and 4. Store C has items 1, 3, and 6. Not only can you not get all of the items from one store, or even two, but because you have to make three small orders instead of one large one, you don’t qualify for free shipping on any of them. So you shop for something else to buy at each store, some minor thing to throw you over the free shipping hurdle, because it’s better to pay for something you don’t necessarily want than to pay for the shipping that ought to be free, but somehow every extra item you convince yourself to buy still leaves you a few cents shy of the free shipping minimum. GGRRRAAAAAAGGGGGGHHH!
I know, I know. I’m lucky to have problems such as these. But they are frustrating and almost enough to make me miss the dehydration and endless checkout lines of mall shopping. Almost.