Because we
live in a rural area, and because I am a lazy sloth-like couch potato who can’t
be bothered to shop in a regular store, I have taken to ordering a lot of stuff
online. In the past two months I have ordered everything from dehydrated
refried beans, to an audio cassette player that converts my cassettes into
digital music files. In truth, this consumer is becoming consumed, and the intoxication
that comes from buying online is beginning to get the better of me. I may be
developing a problem. For some items, unavailable locally, online buying is the
convenient solution. I have learned that, if it is a large purchase, it is a
good idea to personally inspect the item somewhere before ordering it online. I
ordered a top-rated sound bar to improve the audio quality of our TV, but it
would not work (something about wireless connectivity), and I had to send the
whole thing back. I’d never had to return something that large through the mail
– it was in two parts and weighed about 40 pounds - and the lady at our local
post office gave me a really dirty look. Still, returning it by mail was lot
easier than schlepping it back to a store, which in my case would have been 500
kilometers away. Glad I kept the box, which I often foolishly destroy while
unpacking. The other day I ordered some SD cards (digital storage cards for my
camera and 8 track digital recorder) from an online computer store, and I will
probably never do that again. Returning from the physiotherapist in Huntsville
the other day, I got a call (hands free of course, because we all know it is
illegal to hold a cell phone while driving) from Purolator delivery to inform
me that my SD cards were undeliverable. Purlolator does not have “a
station” in Katrine. Well who does?! I thought those guys deliver everywhere. I
was mistaken. Apparently they will only deliver locally if there is enough
demand in the area, and that does not happen in Katrine, in the middle of winter
(which apparently April is around here ), when the snow and ice are 6’ high.
For my $8 delivery charge (it was still
a better deal than buying locally) I had to travel 12 kilometres to pick up the
package. I was particularly amused to see that four SD cards, with a combined
size of approximately 4 square inches, were packed in a box large enough to
hold a box of Kleenex. A small padded envelope would have sufficed and would
have fit in my P.O box in Katrine! Oy.
Did you
ever notice that those stickers they put on produce are sometimes impossible to
remove? You know, the ones which tell you in tiny letters that the product is actually
from Mexico, even though the sign on the bin indicates it was grown in Ontario.
I destroyed a tomato the other day trying to unpeel one of these things.
It’s a bit like the twist off beer bottle cap that will not twist because some
stoner at the bottling plant decided to glue it on as a practical joke. My wife
and mother-in-law are convinced that produce grown in Mexico will make them
sick. Ironically, they don’t seem to have a problem with Peru and Costa Rica,
and the twenty other countries wherein the water is perhaps not as clean as it should
be.
OK, I win
the Darwin Award of the week. We use a homemade concoction to repel squirrels
which involves boiling habanero peppers in water and then using the mixture to
make a pepper spray. The other day I crushed up some of the peppers to boil –
they are very hot peppers – and then
I went to the washroom to have a pee. Need I say more? I thought I had a
urinary tract infection for about a half hour! We used to buy stuff called
“Critter Buster” in a spray bottle but they charge an arm and a leg for what I
can easily make in my kitchen. Fun fact: pepper spray is an effective deterrent
for all sorts of pests. Advice? Wash your hands after handling hot peppers; I
speak from personal experience!
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Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2014 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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