Cialis Smile and the Goodyear G-Spot

Everybody uses delivery services at one time or another. When you live in a rural area, it doesn't take long before you figure out that it's much more economical to just do much of your non-sensical shopping online. Things like techie goodies, musician supplies, heat seeking frisbees and other entertainments are abundant and much cheaper and can be on your door step in 2 clicks of the mouse. That World Wide Web, amply named, is a junk-aholic's utopia. Every purchase you make means that some delivery company will have to make a very long drive to deliver it. Sometimes I buy something and click on "Fed Ex" just so I can get a good laugh at their expense. They go to great lengths to try and not come out here.

Since moving out to the farm, I've become a bit of a delivery service connoisseur. Getting stuff in the mail is great fun. It can develop into an addiction like gambling or sadomasochism. I'm sure that someone will start a support group for internet shoppers sooner or later.

Shopper:"Hi, my name is Nimrod, and I'm an Ebayer."

Support Group: "Hi Nimrod."

Therapist: "Well Nimrod, tell us what brings you to our 12 step program.

"Shopper: "My girlfriend says I have a shopping problem just because I got a little second mortgage on my house to buy the authentic licensed limited edition collectors reproduction of the actual pencil that was chewed by Vin Diesel in XXX".

HSN and QVC are mutant strains of the same addictability chromosonal defect only affecting those missing the common sense gene. These individuals are also susceptible to the Soap Opera Syndrome which brings on acute attacks we'll call delusional benders. It's during these episodes that they lose all ability to differentiate between reality and daytime TV.

Sometimes I wonder if I don't buy stuff online just so's I'll get a little company. Being fused to the keyboard tends to put a crimp in my social life. That is, it would if I had one.

Out here I am only aware of four ways in which my purchases may arrive, they being the following:

1. The United States Postal Service (USPS); They have to come here everyday anyway so they are amiable and easy to work with. They offer services such as package pickup and all the accouterments. They'll even bring things right in the house for you, unless you have a black dog. Yellow dogs however are perfectly acceptable.

2. UPS , not to be confused with the latter. They all wear brown and drive brown trucks so we can tell them apart. You pay a higher price for the special services but dogs are not an issue and they'll even go the extra mile, like haul those really heavy items anywhere you want them, especially if you're not wearing a bra.

3. DHL; I have no idea what that stands for, I didn't even know they existed until I bought something from Overstock.com (a popular discount haunt). These people are magicians. I believe David Copperfield is their CEO. I ordered a guitar one morning and buy 2 pm it was being delivered to my front door. I don't know how they did it, I don't know why they did it, I certainly didn't pay for immediate delivery. The truck pulled into the drive and this guy with a Cialis smile hopped up to the door and handed me the box and was gone before my dog found his Goodyear G-spot.

4. Then there's Fed Ex,which is not who I'd call for expedited delivery. They spend a lot of advertising dollars to impress upon the delivery impaired public that they are "The" express delivery alternative. Maybe so, in the great metropolis, but in our neck of the woods they hold the record for delivery faux pas. They get very creative with the excuses. I had one item sent to me and returned twice before they sent it a third time and actually came out here. They used the whole barrage of reasons why it was undeliverable. All lies I tell you, lies! I think I would know where I am when I'm home all day waiting for them and calling from my phone, here, and I'm told by the person on the other end of the phone at Fed Ex headquarters that the driver was just here and I'm not home. If I wasn't really here when I thought I was here calling from my phone on my front porch surveying all the roads leading here, then where in fact was I really? Could it be that even though I have never watched a soap opera that I have fallen prey to the Soap Opera Syndrome in an evolved form? One triggered by delivery service debacles?

word count 7452/12/2005 2:36 AM