...And then it happens. My eyes go glossy, my fingers are too distracted by clicking rapidly throughout the hundreds of home-pages to realize that Alvin & the Chipmunks has come on the stereo. A good 3 and a half minutes go by before I get a glance from a coworker that is so frustrated and burning that it catches my attention and I fumble for the remote to put on the Arabic and Argentinean mix CD so I can once again eliminate a distraction.
Is it the excitement of being able to sit on my ass, not move a muscle, and search for ANY little thing I could possibly want? To be able to purchase it and have it in my hands within a couple of days, depending on how much I'm willing to spend on S&H? And what about those days where you stumble upon "free shipping"!? Oh, the GLORY and WARMTH that fills my heart upon seeing that red-highlighted "free shipping!" notification after hours of searching ebay for everything I don't need. Hell, sometimes I'll buy things based on the "free shipping" alone!
Despite the excitement of the find, the disbelief of discounted prices, the anxious anticipating for the 5-7 business days following, or the great reviews of sellers by buyers just like myself, it is something else that makes this all worth while.
It's pouring with rain. It's BEEN pouring with rain in the state of New York for what seems like the past century. Another god damned day when my iPhone told me it would be sunny, and yet again I am forced to question if this is the second coming of The Great Flood. My boyfriend's band practice is running late so the excitement of coming home to him is eliminated. I got a notice in the mail about some $300.00 fine for a book I forgot to return to the library 2 years ago. And to top it all off, as I walk up my front yard, my shoe gets stuck in the mud before I take the next step, and the next thing I know I am ankle deep in my precious pooch's post-dinner poops. You have GOT to be fucking kidding me. I whip open the screen door, slamming it into the mail-box, and hop in the house soaking wet with a stocking stuffed with shit. I don't even know where to go from here. Upstairs to the shower? Outside to the hose? Downstairs to the basement to grab a bottle of whiskey and drown my days worth of petty sorrows away?
While my eyes scan the room for some sort of divine sign that will answer my traumatic troubles, I see it. There! There on the dining room table! A large cardboard box with MY NAME on it!
Suddenly I retreat back to the zone... the frequent shopper zone... What could it be?! Which order could this be?! It doesn't even matter! ALL THE WORLD'S PROBLEMS ARE SOLVED! I am standing on my stepmother's oriental rug, dripping with feces and the hairspray that has now managed to run from the top of my soaking wet head to the soles of my tights. I am tearing open the box and throwing that styrofoam crap all over the place. And there it is. HERE IT IS! The EXACT same t-shirt Dominic Monaghan wore on the 3rd episode of the 2nd season of LOST! I don't even wear t-shirts!
It's that feeling, that moment of arrival, that makes all the unnecessary and crazy hours seemingly wasted in the deepest depths of the internet 110% worth it. I spent $42.89 for a t-shirt I probably could have found in Walmart given enough time. But the receiving of a package in the mail is unlike most excitements in life. For those of us who are workaholic losers who cannot get out and see the world... we have ebay.
