Fifteen years ago the only cell phone I had was called a car phone and it was in my car—my company car, I might add, and the phone was for company use. I know people sometimes carried those huge, obnoxious phones, but they weren’t very convenient. And again, they were obnoxious. Not many of us carried those and we were still completely dependent on our landlines at home. If you needed to contact someone, you called and left them a message on their answering machine attached to their home phone. No cells. No texting. No nothing.
Just fifteen years ago. Wow.
Funny to think that my children don’t know anything about a time when there wasn’t 24/7 television—Disney Channel or Nick, Netflix on demand shows, DVD’s—the ability to watch a movie over and over! Or video games, and smaller versions on Nintendo DS’s—whatever they are called now. That will probably change before I hit the “publish” button on this post. And they certainly can’t remember a time when we didn’t have a personal computer, a laptop—several of them around the house. I feel so old when I think about how quickly times have changed.
Technology continues to change at even faster rates than before. These wow-times-are-changing fast reflections recently slammed me because of an experience I had while purchasing a book. Since I live in the country I purchase a lot of books, a lot of everything, from Amazon because I have their Prime membership so I get free shipping in two days. TWO DAYS. I can’t get to the store in that time on most days.
Still, I want to support the local brick and mortar stores and decided to put more effort into doing just that. I found a diet book I really wanted because I already had all the other diet books. I decided to drive into town on a day when I had time to make the thirty minute drive and purchase it form Barnes and Nobles. But, I wasn’t at all positive I wanted to buy it until I searched through the contents.
Hence, I purchased it on Kindle first so I could browse through the recipes. Was it a diet book that I could live with? Would my family enjoy the recipes? And after looking at it on my Kindle I decided that definitely yes, we would love the recipes. But cookbooks aren’t something that are all that great as an ebook—just my opinion. So. . .the drive into town to buy the book. Life, laundry, dishes, school, writing, laundry again. . .and I still hadn’t made it to town, or at least all the way across town to Barnes and Nobles. Sheesh—I could have ordered this book and had it three days ago, via Amazon Prime!
Finally, I dropped the boys off at their Royal Rangers meeting and ran a few errands. Walked into Barnes and Nobles and found one copy of the diet book I wanted. On my stroll to the counter I stopped when I noticed the price.
TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS?! Twenty-five dollars. I can’t remember when I’ve paid that much for a book. Maybe never. All this way, all this resolve so I could be supportive of my local bookstore and they can’t meet me halfway? I mean, I would be willing to buy it—MAYBE—for twenty dollars. Never mind that I can get it for 14.99 via Amazon—a whopping ten dollars less. I know, I know. . .Amazon doesn’t have the overhead. Still, ten dollars more at the bookstore.(Never mind that I had already bought it on Kindle and that plus the hard cover cost through Amazon was more than twenty-five dollars)
With a family of six, I just couldn’t swing twenty-five dollars for a diet book I probably wouldn’t really follow long enough to lose weight. On the drive back to pick up the boys from Royal Rangers, I flipped through my iPhone Apps, looking for Amazon--when I stopped at the light, that is. At the next red light, I surfed for the diet book. The one I just bought on Kindle the week before only now I want it in hard cover. And then. . .I hit buy with one click (or whatever the wording is).
Amazing that in this age of technology, I’m able to buy a book, go shopping, while driving down the road. The whole process I went through to get this book just seems surreal.
Regardless, this year I plan to do a lot of my Christmas shopping at regular stores instead of online like I've done in previous years just to support the local retailers, and I hope they will be willing to meet me halfway.
How do you plan to do your shopping this year?
Blessings,
Beth
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