Family Daze: Shopping the Net

Every once in a while I wander from my safe little world of rotary dial phones and manual typewriters and into modern technology. Yes, it’s true.

Take, for instance, my decision to do all of my holiday shopping on the Internet. Of course the immediate advantages of this method are obvious: No crowded malls, long lines, or parking places, plus you can go shopping in red flannel pajamas and fuzzy penguin slippers without fear of being escorted to the nearest locked medical facility by a group of men in white coats. On top of that, you can be having a really, really bad hair day and no one on the entire planet will ever know. Just where, I ask you, can you find a better reason than that? And for those of you with young children, I don’t need to tell you how beautifully this system works.

Of course Internet shopping has one, big disadvantage I hadn’t thought of: I ‘m completely computer illiterate. Well, OK, not completely. I know just enough about the Internet to be dangerous. Let’s just say I am the sort of person who will push buttons and make all sorts of weird lights flash onto the screen, then try to fix it by hitting the top of the monitor with my shoe.

So I did what any wise, woman of the new millennium would do: I asked my computer literate husband for help.

And for forty-five minutes he sat next to me and patiently explained all about virtual shopping carts and internet credit cards and all that, while I snapped, "I don’t want to know how it all works! Just hurry up and show me how to buy a silver pen and pencil set, will you?"

He finally ended up writing me out a list of detailed instructions, which I couldn’t understand, what so ever. So I resorted to my second plan: pressing buttons willy nilly until I accidentally found a site that sold stuff. Once there I clicked on anything that fell into the category of things-I-could-pass-off-as-gifts.

But don’t let this fool you. Shopping on the net isn’t as easy as you’d think. No sir ee. Once you’re actually doing it there are certain questions that are bound to come up that have never once occurred to you before. Like:

Just where, exactly, do I swipe my ATM card?

Is that cheese ball snowman actual size?

What if my order gets stuck in the wires that run underneath the carpet?

I’m hungry. Is there a food court in here somewhere?

How big is a virtual shopping cart?

I’m pressing the enter button, but I don’t hear any noise. Why is that?

What if I accidentally send my credit card number to the entire world?

Will the government know that I’m buying Victoria Secret lingerie for my sister?

How come my virtual clothing model has better hair than me?

Now, friends, I’d gladly share the answers with you, expect for one thing: I still have no idea what they are.

All I know is when I was finished I turned off the computer and stared vacantly into the screen.

"What’s wrong?" my husband asked.

"It’s just that I don’t really feel like I’ve, well, shopped."

"What do you mean?"

"There isn’t the thrill of sneaking bags upstairs or trying on new clothes or anything like that," I said. "Where’s the excitement? The adventure?"

He gave me a compassionate look, but deep down I knew that he didn’t really understand.

And, of course, a few days later my purchases arrived on my doorstep: a three-inch high snowman cheese ball, twenty-three pen and pencil sets, and a chenille nightgown that would fit tightly on, say, a tree lizard.

I have to confess that, for now, I’m going back to shopping in person. Now don’t get me wrong. It’s not like shopping on the Internet isn’t a wonderful technological invention or anything like that. There are loads of people who swear by it.

But, me, I’ll opt for the adventure. They don’t call it "retail therapy" for nothing, you know.