A Better Way

I just read an article written by an online "economist" and he was complaining about all the inefficiencies of today's online Christmas shopping.  He was bemoaning the slowness of the system and just waiting for Amazon to perfect drone deliveries that will only take an hour . It reminded me of the commercial of the guy lying in bed, clapping his hands to turn out the lights, and then complaining, "There's got to be a better way". 

The year was 1962.  There was no "online" shopping with thousands of "stores" and millions of items to choose from.  Back then it was called "mail order" and there was for the most part only three stores with catalogs to order from that had maybe a few thousand items...Sears Roebuck, Montgomery Ward and J.C. Penney.

Here's how it worked.  You had to WAIT for the catalog to come in the MAIL instead of any time you want just clicking on one of thousands of web sites with millions of items to choose from.  Then you had to fill out an order form (pencil & paper), put it in the MAIL (at the latest before Thanksgiving), and hope your order didn't get lost. These days you click on the button that says "Order Now" and you get an INSTANT email reply that says your order has been received.  Back then it was just the US Postal Service and you had to WAIT for the MAIL to deliver your order which usually took 1-4 weeks instead of having UPS or FedEx deliver in 1-4 days. Oh, and you couldn't "track your package".  You just had to WAIT around twiddling your thumbs and praying your order got to you before Christmas.

But you know what?  All that waiting, and all that suspense is what Christmas is all about.  No matter if your seven or seventy.  I oughta know.  I was seven once and I'm not quite seventy yet.  But I can WAIT.

Yup, sure do feel sorry for you folks that have to WAIT a whole day to get your Amazon order.

MERRY CHRISTMAS.