Cyber Shopping

One minute I’m delighted that I’ve been able to do so much Christmas shopping on line. For several days, in fact, I was so happy with what I accomplished on line. I could compare prices and items without driving all over the place and waiting in long lines. Most shipping has been free and most items I’ve had coupon codes for. Yay, me! Yay, cyber shopping!

And then along comes my first delivery nightmare: two packages that get delivered to the wrong address, to people who live at number 70, not number 90. That is, my packages got delivered to strangers who live down the street from my parents, and not to my parents’ house, where they should have been delivered.

So out comes the nuclear reactor in me, the alarmist, the woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown [insert F bombs, tears, ineffective deep breaths, more F bombs, and pacing in the kitchen on the corded phone] while on hold with “Big Brown” and my poor mother bears witness to this monster to whom she gave birth ages hence, who can’t imagine that things would work out in the end.

Nope.

The Doomsday scenario played out in my head—Dad and Amy without their gifts on Christmas: some stranger down the street all cozy in a fleur de lis sweatshirt while filling my father’s leather photo album—when just a couple of hours later, in the same day, the nice ladies would call my parents back and my mom would take a walk down the street to get the packages.

Merry Christmas.