“Oh the Wells Fargo Wagon is a coming down the street
Oh please let it be for me” The Wells Fargo Wagon from the Music Man by Meredith Willson
Everybody loves Christmas, holidays and birthdays when those presents arrive from relatives and friends. Boxes filled with unknown surprises and goodies no one can predict, but is so exciting to receive.
Yep, nothing quite as fun as opening that box, ripping off the paper and seeing something fun and wonderful just for you. Soul food for the inner narcissist.
So is it any wonder Amazon is making astronomical amounts of money when they provide Christmas every day of the year?
Most people have become quite accustomed to ordering from Amazon. In fact, we grew so used to buying online we branched out to do most of our shopping. We began seeing far less of those stores we once wandered about in searching for that perfect purchase.
So what has led to our decision to let our fingers do the walking over the keyboard?
No surprise it has now become a regular and integral part of our lives to see packages in front of our front door.
Even if it was sent by us to us, doesn’t seem to matter much really. There is a level of wow- there’s-something-waiting-at-my-door-for-me excitement we may have become a little addicted to.
Okay I realize I’m using a word with a relatively negative connotation for something I’m coloring as positive. Yet isn’t any feeling that you continue to crave kind of like an addition no matter how minor?
I guess Amazon could be considered the Wells Fargo Wagon of our time. Driving down the street in a van instead of a horse-drawn wagon is quite high tech I admit, but the feeling is the same.
The fun of opening something that you received and wanted. Or especially didn’t even know you were getting.
I know we’ve all returned home from a shopping trip at the mall and one by one opened the little treasures we found on our excursion. And yes, I know this may be a chick thing more than a guy thing, but to put it in words a man can relate to…it’s like returning home from the hunt schlepping a deer on your hood or wherever it is attached.
At first, we were all a bit skeptical of the whole ordering online thing. I myself still clung to the whole touchy, feely love-to-shop in a store experience. We embraced the home shopping experience with a bit of trepidation, but then we suddenly got it.
Wow, more stuff to buy and we don’t even have to leave home. And no shopping hours.
Oh yeah, we got hooked and the shopping networks got rich.
Was it any surprise that the Internet would figure it out really quickly.
I think my total addition to Amazon began to truly take hold during the pandemic.
Up until then it was marginal at best.
I still enjoyed the whole brick and mortar experience. Loved the mall and walking around outdoors checking out store windows.
After all we are creatures of habit and my habit was to walk through a store and check out the merch.
Then something changed.
During COVID we were forced to let our fingers do the walking and searching for what we needed and coincidently, a whole lot of stuff we didn’t.
It became a new way of life to just sit in front of the keyboard and check out thousands of options for anything we wanted.
Let’s face it, unless you’re an Olympic runner you couldn’t cover that much territory at shopping brick and mortar in an hour as you can online.
There is a certain excitement to knowing instead of three pairs of acceptable black pants you now have access to hundreds without walking a step.
Can anyone wonder why women embraced this new experience?
Yet men liked it also. Checking out guy stuff and having tons of choices to compare and contrast proved to be a good way to do business.
So now everyone is happy checking out choices and bargains online.
It was almost hard to believe there were so many options available for anything we wanted.
During the pandemic we bought hand sanitizer, home disinfectant, puzzles, cleaning supplies and food. Lots of food. Although we couldn’t bring it in our house or open it immediately. We knew those evil little COVID germs may be lurking on the surface.
I even sprayed the outside of my food containers before opening them.
Then I took frozen foods out of the cartons and put them in the freezer unboxed.
Oh do not mock me, I’m sure you were just as freaked out as I was. Even looking for cool masks became another excuse to shop online.
Let’s face it, we were all programmed to be nuts at that point and over-the-top paranoid.
So returning to the whole online shopping thing, Amazon became the go-to place to get what we needed to survive.
It doesn’t take much to see we were being trained to seek and search for the necessities of life with a whole new attitude.
Why leave home when Amazon and the entire retail world delivers to your doorstep with one click.
Ah, and it’s that one click thing that sealed the deal.
So easy to understand the fun of having something placed outside your door just for you.
So easy to understand how taking the lazy road can easily become a habit and the total convenience factor was seductive.
If you live in California add to that a governor who believes that no day should end without a gas price hike and gasoline can never cost too much, and it becomes very easy to rationalize staying at home to shop.
So here we are, boxes up to the ceiling filled with goodies we probably don’t even need, but were compelled to buy.
Breaking down boxes is my new pastime and running to UPS to return stuff my new job.
Life has changed now that the Wells Fargo wagon is a-coming down the street every hour on the hour. Like Pavlov’s dogs we have been conditioned to salivate every time the doorbell rings and we hear…”Amazon delivery.”
Oops, gotta go. The sixteenth pair of black slacks I ordered just arrived. Hang on Amazon, I’m a coming.
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