Which, technically, is on theme with today's post: delayed gratification. It is awesome!
Why is it awesome? I'm not quite sure. It just is. It's something different, I guess, from the way our lives usually function, where everything is instant and fancy now. Though that seems like it should make the inconvenience of waiting seem obnoxious... But I'll explain what has brought me to this conclusion.
I have been Christmas shopping. From my couch. Online Christmas shopping! It. Is. Great.
First, if you don't already know, you should know I love buying presents for people. Christmas is my favorite time of the year, because I can go spend money, guess at things that people might like and (when I have no clue) buy really funny gag gifts (which are just fun to begin with), and the whole time, everything smells fantastic. The thing that's really started to annoy me about Christmas shopping is the crowds; when I was younger, I didn't mind the crowds and the shoving and the picked over shelves. It was just part of the fun, elbowing old ladies out of the way and feeling like I'd gotten a sweet deal on a hand-veggie chopper I saw on TV but found at the mall for two and a half times the price. (No one in my family will ever, ever let me live that down, but Emilee tells me Aunt Val still occasionally uses that veggie chopper thing, so I feel like it was worth it.) And if there was nothing left I wanted to buy, it just meant I had to be more creative in my shopping!
But now, I just hate waiting in line. I don't like shopping in general (sometimes, if I haven't been in a while, it can be fun, but not on a regular basis), and so lines really annoy me. And people are rude. And the quality of stuff in stores is craptastic, which I suppose I didn't realize when I was younger, because I was just so happy to have money to buy things.
Which leads me to online Christmas shopping. It's still great. You can see what you're buying, read reviews of people who bought that thing, usually get a better deal on Amazon than anywhere else, and, la creme de la creme, you get to WAIT FOR IT IN THE MAIL. That's the most exciting part. Even more exciting than having something instantly in your hands that is now yours and will soon be wrapped up and gifted to someone else is the excitement of waiting for something to arrive IN THE MAIL.
Because seriously, when do we get mail anymore? All my mail is junk mail. All my bills and credit card statements and all that are online. I read Perez instead of subscribing to magazines. Emilee and I now text instead of sending weekly letters (which we totally used to, because we are the coolest cousins!) So the only time I get mail is if the NEA would like me to vote on something (LITERALLY EVERY DAY) or U of I wants my money (at least once a month) or someone gets married (too often). So waiting for a package in the mail is like, the ultimate excitement. And, you can now track your purchases online! You can watch them get closer! You can get psyched thinking about opening that box when you get home from work to check out the cool stuff you bought, even if it's not technically yours! It's all exciting and mysterious and fun--and for real, who doesn't like getting mail?
There you go. Delayed gratification in our instant, technology-filled world. Mail is still cool, and I can just smell my Scentsy if I want to pretend I'm at the mall in the middle of the holiday rush.
<3 Lauren
Today's muse music: Ava - Coeur de Pirate
Also, to commemorate the poor mouse, I have drawn a stunning portrait of what I imagine to be its final moments:
No, that is not a brick of poop. It's a glue trap with a blob of poisoned peanut butter. I made it 3D! And blue, because the real trap is black, but I thought it could use some more color. The green stuff is the poison.
This is why I teach French, not art.
Oh, my sticky traps do not have poisoned peanut butter. Mice like running along the wall, so on its normal path, the mouse (oops!) just happens to run onto the stick trap. And the traps are actually for catching crickets that get out...but I have caught a mouse at least once per year since living here. One even tried to gnaw its own leg off to get off the trap.
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