No, this is not going to be a Call for a Return to Brick-and-Mortar. Except for a few instances where hands-on, actual exposure to what I’m about to buy justifies the time involved in actually visiting a store, I’m an avid, very appreciative, online shopper.
It does have its frustrations. Who among us hasn’t turned to the internet with a mundane shopping task, that should be as easy as one-two-three, only to find that, no matter how many different ways you word the simple/prosaic/everyday item you’re looking for, the internet is clueless? (I want a Phillips-head screwdriver; the internet thinks I’m looking for the head/best car service in the Philippines.)
But that’s just one of the lessons to be learned from the creative/productive frustrations of shopping online: First how, to the highest level possible, to be as precise as possible about what I want, since no brick-and-mortar store employee is there to say, “Oh, you probably mean a such-and-such.” Second, though, for those times when the internet is truly clueless, how many different ways I can describe what I’m looking for…including ways I never thought of before and even ways that don’t strike me as accurate or logical at all but might get the internet to respond better to my request. And this leads to my focusing in far more fully on what I want and what exact purpose it will serve.
This combined with the fact that I’m not standing in a brick-and-mortar store that only sells one type of product…like exercise equipment when I’m looking for covers for exercise equipment or a hardware store when I’m looking for some kind of hook or rack to hang my dishwashing cloth…facilitates shopping outside the box. Jumping around from one possibility to another, I ended up buying a king-sized bedspread to cover all of the exercise equipment I keep stacked up against a wall, far more attractive than anything intended to cover exercise equipment, and I can expose it all when I’m ready to exercise with a single tug. Frankly, I was going nuts looking for how best to stretch out my dishcloth to dry but 10 minutes of furious typing landed me with a napkin holder that fits perfectly on my drainboard.
I therefore salute the frustrations of online shopping…
