Online Shopping
From The Encyclopedia of Pointless
The Ancients got it right on the first try, you know. Two people would meet, with the intention of exchanging belonging they had for belongings they wanted. These exchanges would be made politely and without incident, unless one party tried to screw over the other party. Those sorts of exchanges usually ended in simple and easy to understand brutal murder. Eventually the process was streamlined with the invention of money and all was right with the world.
How do you screw that up?
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The Relentless Blight of Technology
Technology is well known for needlessly complicating and distorting many formerly simple human standards. The mailing of letters, which used to allow for weeks of procrastination, which could then be blamed on the shoddy mail service suddenly became lightening fast. Conversations that could once be put off for weeks on end with careful planning can suddenly be forced at any moment by accursed cell phones. Filling out forms and applications with simple pen and paper, replaced by horrible internet variants, held within browsers that delight in clearing all the information you’ve entered out of nothing but vile mechanical spite.
But no one area of civilized society suffered more the area of exchanging goods and services. Let us drive his point into your skull as one would a hammer into a nail, or a set of ocelot fangs into the unguarded neck of a brave adventure.
The classical human transaction
- Enter the fine establishment that carries the desired good or service.
- Pluck the desired items from the shelves, aligned neatly into rows. Should you be unable to find the desired item, seize a hapless employee, and bully them into your servitude, until they carry out your all-important wishes.
- Take the item in question to the checkout; rush through the needed small talk.
- End the transaction by either smiling, handing them the desired amount of money, or by frowning and brandishing a firearm. Remember, you don't have to be large and powerful to rob a store, but it helps!
- Leave the store, either happily clutching your desired item, or in police custody.
The Hated Online Transaction
- Navigate a confusing and despicable sea of menus, searching for the one that brings you closer to the item you desire. Supposedly, you should be able to “Search for it, but you’d be surprised how many washing machines, skateboards and escort services a search for a word like “Blender” would bring up.
- Upon finally finding the desired item, click the “add to cart” button. This places the item in a supposed “Cart” that exists primarily in our hearts, and in our minds.
- Repeat as many times as necessary.
- Click on the “Go to checkout” button. Unlike the make-believe cart, this checkout is very real! They built it deep within the earth’s core, so as to keep it’s mystical secrets far away from your prying eyes.
- Come to the saddening realization that you have no record with this company. Unhappily click the “Register Here button”
- Go through the registration process. Generally, this not only requires you to place your most important financial information on the internet, (Which is not as safe as it might seem), but also all the personal information one would ever need to take all the challenge out of stalking you. Remember, you’ll need to do it twice! Once to actually register, and once to actually register again when the browser abruptly states that the page cannot be found, and places you back at the window you were just at, sans any useful information.
- Once done, check your e-mail for your confirmation! Hooray!
- Go back to the site, only to discover that the Cart you kept locked away in your soul has not been focused on in far too long, and has thus been sent to exist deep in your subconscious, with the childhood monsters in your closet and your imaginary friend, Terry! Hi Terry!
- Repeat steps 1-4, only instead of clicking “Register Here” log into the system.
- Complete the checkout process, signing away your real money in return for nothing concrete.
- Wait 3-6 weeks to obtain your item. While you’re at it, bemoan your foolish unwillingness to pay the extra 57 dollars for overnight delivery.
- Finally, receive the thing you bought, complete with dents from when the post office lackey and his friends used it for a fun game of “Beat the box with a baseball bat. Revel in your ownership.
The moral of the story
In the end, shopping online teaches us an important lesson about delayed gratification. Namely that delayed gratification is very, very bad, and should be avoided at all costs. Hooray instant gratification, and all its fast, quick and realistic wonders! Huzzah!
| -- Beat |
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