MY LIFE WITH AMAZON

MY MYSTERY GIFT

 The Amazon truck stopped at our house yesterday. The delivery person didn’t ring the doorbell. He put the box on the bench beside the door, took its picture and drove away. About thirty seconds later, I had an email from Amazon with a message that my delivery was complete. The email included a photograph of the package at my very own doorstep with the message “how was your service?” Thumbs up or thumbs down?

How many responses to this sequence are there? I clicked “thumbs up” naturally. 

Amazon trucks zip in and around our house every week and stop at least once that often at our door. The delivery person never rings the door bell. He never offers my dog a cookie. The regular postman does. I don’t know what the Amazon truck driver looks like. The postman’s name is John. I leave a little something in the mailbox for John at Christmastime. I don’t give the Amazon person anything.

Even before the year of Covid isolation, we were relying on Amazon for easy purchases and quick delivery. I like book stores — but Amazon books are discounted always. Even better, I can opt for used issues — my favorite! I love used books with underlines, highlighted passages and notes in the margins made by previous owners. All that makes me feel like a part of an invisible community of readers — a virtual bookclub. I add my own highlights and notes before passing the books on. I’ve decided to add my name to those books too — discretely on a back blank page. Maybe it’ll initiate a true bookish conversation. 

But the Amazon thing has gotten out of hand. Now when we can’t find something at the grocery store, we “Amazon it.” Instead of one or two packs of dry onion soup mix, I have two dozen. (There is no “use by” date for dry onion soup mix. Somebody is putting these packets into a shipping box. I’m paying shipping fees so I may as well make the order worthwhile. How often do I use dry onion soup mix you ask? Maybe twice a year.)

Obviously, there are some flaws in all this plan. Storage for one. And carried to extremes — as though ordering a dozen dry flavor packs isn’t extreme? —I’m contributing to the demise of my local economy. 

So my next step: I fill a box for the Penfield Food Pantry. Numbers of families in need of food have doubled this year. More children are going hungry. These people are in crisis. I pack cans of tuna, boxes of dry pasta, unopened rolls of toilet paper…and a half dozen packs of dry onion soup mix.

About yesterday’s delivery: a book “THE MADMAN’S LIBRARY: The Strangest Books, Manuscripts and Other Literary Curiosities From History.”  It has beautiful illustrations. It looks interesting. But I didn’t order it. Nothing inside the box or on the label indicates who sent it. 

Did  you? I’d like to thank you. If I can ever catch the Amazon delivery man, I’ll ask him how to track down this mystery gift.