Alice and I make very few trips to “town.” Back in our working days, especially when our son was very active in many extracurricular activities, we were often in town from early to late, on weekends and holidays, and in-between. When we reached the point in our lives where we didn’t have to make these trips, we found we didn’t want to. For years now, I’ve been making weekly trips to town on Monday mornings to do the shopping. We’re currently trying an experiment where I go every other week instead, but so far it is working poorly. The first “off” Monday, I ran out of lemons for iced tea (horrors!) and made a special trip to town just for lemons.
I treat my weekly trips like a military operation. I have my list, I plan my strategy, I get home around noon, have some lunch and take a nap. And if it isn’t on my list, it might as well have yet to be invented, because I just don’t browse on my shopping trips to town. There is a high probability I’ll get it if it is gettable, as long as it is on the list.
The list lives on the refrigerator door where it is handy. As we use things up, the item is added to the list. Often, as I’m getting ready to open the refrigerator door, I’ll scan the list to see if anything new has been added. Herein lies one of the great flaws of our system. You see, when I’m about to open the refrigerator door, it means I’m doing something food related. And the last thing I want to see is something that makes my stomach less interested in food.
For quite some time now, I’ve had an item that has needed to go on the list, but I haven’t been able to add it to the list. The item is Preparation H ™. It has stayed off the list because I haven’t wanted to broadcast my need to the family, and/or the outside world. And I didn’t want to be reminded of this need every time I grab an egg. So supplies dwindled, and no resupply was imminent. I considered using tape and a flap of paper to hide the unmentionables on the list, but never got around to it. Then the light bulb went off.
We’d recently spent the money to join Amazon Prime ™. For about $100/year, items are shipped 2nd day, and there is no minimum order size. The beautiful part is anywhere in the house where there is a computer (and there are lots) there is a connection to Amazon. In two minutes, I’d found what I wanted, placed the order, and can anticipate my order to arrive in an anonymous brown cardboard box with no explanations required.
The paper flap idea is out the window, and Amazon Prime ™ is in.