Prime Moment

Dearest Rachel –

I have a couple of topics for you sitting in the wings at the moment, but I’ll reserve them for a day when I have less going on, both in terms of the lack of something happening to relate to you and the time to commit them to pixels. This one is imminent and fairly brief, especially since I need to get it sent off before I head out to meet Lars – we’ve been more or less out of touch for he past week, as he’d spent it in Door County with his dad. But before taking off, I thought in might be interesting for you to hear about this, even if it is a pretty trivial subject.

I want to start off by confirming something that you already know; as a general rule, the manufactured ‘holiday’ that is Prime Day still generally passes without notice or comment in this household. This is despite the fact that we’ve had a Prime membership (for the free delivery, natch) for probably the last decade of your life, and have continued to do so since your departure. After all, we were buying stuff from the place back when it first opened in 1996, years before the dot-com bubble blew up and popped, and while we didn’t buy stock in the company at its inception, the shares we have in Amazon have done plenty well by us.

Between both our membership and shareholder status, it’s not that we aren’t aware of the day (actually, it’s practically a week these days; gotta keep the public coming back and buying more for as long as possible, right?), it’s just that we don’t have the urgent need to patronize the place on a regular basis, Prime Day or no. It’s a place for us (mostly me, as far as I know, but it’s possible that Daniel patronizes the place now and again; I no longer scrutinize his credit card activity, since it’s paid out of his bank account these days) to get Christmas gifts that can’t be found around here, as well as the odd grocery foodstuff that I can’t find in the local area (so I can’t complain about the price comparison – and in any event, Amazon would be cheaper than the drive to wherever might stock this or that item that isn’t sold here), but that’s about it. It might be argued that our membership costs us more than it’s worth (especially since we don’t take advantage of it’s other benefits, like Prime Video or Prime Music, although I’m not sure if our access to those are on a provisional basis, and would have extra charges tacked on if we decided to use them), but since whatever profits are made off of us eventually trickle back into our pockets via stock prices and dividends, we can live with it.

However, with our swap of internet and cell phone services, our new vendor sent us a welcome gift of a sizable Amazon gift card. And while we don’t have any shortage of gift cards still lying around – and it’s not as if they ever expire (although they do lose the value they once had, if only due to the effects of inflation – there have been a few things I’ve been meaning to look into either obtaining or restocking. And with Prime Day supposedly upon us today (again, I put it that way because I’m pretty sure it extends for several days now), I might as well take a moment to pull the trigger and take care of these orders, both while they’re on sale and they won’t actually cost me any cash.

To be sure, it’s not as if they’re anything particularly consequential; just restocking some chocolate malt and protein powder, the dark chocolate spread with the spotty delivery record, that sort of thing. The one standout item I’ve been considering is a TV table for my recliner, so I can eat breakfast or dinner without disturbing Daniel while he’s sleeping or the boys while they’re watching stuff. Besides, there’s little enough room to actually eat at the dining room table at this point (I swear, it’s mostly Logan’s stuff; otherwise, I’d be doing something with it), so I might as well facilitate my relocation that much more so. It might also make it easier to turn the room into an office of its own from time to time.

Granted, that won’t eat up even half of the card, so I probably should come up with a few more things; preferably something practical. Maybe I should prep myself for Honduras with some hand sanitizer wipes, in lieu of washing my hands in suspect tap water. For that matter, it might be good to get some liquid soap – for either home use or the trip – that actually smells like soap, as opposed to the pound cake that the stuff currently sitting in the bathroom smells like. I don’t need my soap getting me hungry for cake when I’m already trying to watch my weight. And then, there are always the occasional Christmas presents I could look for in advance, which I’ll not list out here, lest I spoil the surprise for someone… although…

With that being said, there are a few purchases I ought to be making that Amazon can’t help me with. The other day, Daniel and I were watching a video in which a character was flipping a plushie inside and out (like that caterpillar/butterfly we found in Long Grove, way back when we were on one side or the other of our engagement; I never did find it during Jan’s scouring of the house, not that I think of it), to externalize her mood to the other characters without having to bother to speak. He was enamored of the concept, and the reel actually mentioned the site where they could be found (although I’m not sure it was a sponsored reel, it probably should have been). Granted, his birthday has come and gone, but now that the idea has been brought up, I really ought to check into the store for Christmas presents that actually will come as a surprise to him by the time December rolls around. And while this is only peripherally connected to this topic (it’s online shopping, yes, but not at Amazon), I mention it to you so you can keep me accountable: “Did you get those plushies for Daniel that you said you would for Christmas?” “Oh, yeah, that’s right…”

Anyway, as long as you’re going to hold me to this, honey, I might as well ask you to keep an eye on me on an overall basis, and wish me luck. I don’t have that much time, and I’m going to need it in general, at any rate.