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For the past few years, I have staunchly supported local businesses when doing my Christmas and Hanukkah shopping, largely as a result of putting it off so long that even FedEx can't help me. There have been times when I have specifically supported local businesses that are open past 7 p.m. on Christmas Eve. And once I was a huge supporter of local businesses where someone comes and lets you in if you pound on the front door long enough.
This year, however, will be different. I've said that every year, of course. I don't make New Year's resolutions, but I do make a Shortly After Thanksgiving Resolution and it's always the same one: to make as many of my gift purchases as possible without having to take off my bathrobe.
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I think I've finally got it made, however, because I have Amazon Prime, which sounds like the main character in someone's femdom fetish fantasy, but is actually a highly addictive drug.
Amazon.com, of course, is the first company to market directly to your fingers. Other businesses attempt to engage your intellect, pander to your fears or appeal to your sense of humor. Amazon is doing its best to bypass your brain entirely, and have your shopping duties taken over by the same autonomous process that pulls your hand away when you touch a hot stove burner. Once the company's plans are completed, packages will show up on your doorstep that you have no memory of ordering. But that will be no impediment, because it's your hand that signs for them, after all.
1-Click ordering is just the beginning of this strategy. With Amazon Prime, you pay a large upfront fee in order to have items sent to you at a shipping discount. It's like a sale you have to pay for! I have no idea how Amazon's marketers talked me into that, but I'm guessing they took my hand out for drinks and karaoke, then pulled out the contract after a rousing, slurred rendition of "Proud Mary."
However it happened, they've got me. The program acts directly on the portion of the brain that tends to talk you out of rash purchases, the "cautious callosum." Amazon Prime acts as a stimulant, telling your brain that you have to make purchases because you have to get your money's worth. In some cases it implants elaborate fantasies that you will be able to drive Amazon to its knees with the sheer volume of your purchases, sending the company further into economic dissolution with each free two-day shipment.
At the same time, Amazon Prime acts as a narcotic, lulling your brain into negligence with promises that it's all OK, because you're saving money. The end result? All purchasing decisions are deferred to a small knot of nerves just above your elbow, the ones that control your clicking finger.
The upside to all of this is that I'll get my shopping done earlier than ever this year. In fact, for all I know, I've finished it already and I'll find out two business days from now. I expect my friends and relatives will be receiving a lot of gloves and finger puppets – my hands aren't known for their empathy – but it's the random firing of motor neurons that counts, right?
Amazon may have me, but luckily there's a limit to the exploitation. As it turns out, I don't have that much money! No matter what my hand does, there's a hard limit. Oh, except that I appear to have an Amazon credit card. One that I don't remember ordering. Or signing. Well, hell.
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