The other day I saw on a TV program that shopping and marketing via the internet is getting more popular at a fast pace, especially in Korea. Why especially in Korea? I don’t know.
Of course in order to be able to do this, you need a very sophisticated instrument which ages ago started out as a humble cell phone and is now a jack of all trades. It’s the kind of instrument which I don’t have and certainly do not wish to have. What’s more, I do not want to shop on the internet. More and more I realize that modern technology interferes with our pleasant and quite satisfactory way of life.
In the future I want to keep on going to the open market, which is a symphony of enticing sights and smells and last but not least offers merchandise at very reasonable prices.
I also don’t want to give up my shopping in the supermarket where I wander around, meet people, can see and touch the things I want to buy. And where I have an adventure here and there, like the day before yesterday. While I was picking out some nice tomatoes, I saw a pretty middle-aged woman whom I know quite well. I went up to her and said:
“Nice meeting you here I never met you in the supermarket before!”
“Well, I wasn’t here for the last two months, I just got back from the US last night and I am still quite jet lagged!”
Her answer stunned me. What was she talking about? What’s happening to her, she had just attended a yoga class with me two days ago, could she be caught in the cruel claws of dementia? Or is it I who is getting badly mixed up?
“But, but…but how…how…when did you go, I’ve been in the gym with you just this week, I don’t understand it!”
"I do," she said laughing, "you’ve been with my twin sister Lisa, it seems that we keep on fooling the whole world all the time and you know what? It’s fun, although it does get annoying occasionally!”
It wasn’t fun for me, doubting my own or her sanity even if only for a moment!! At least one of those twins should have a different hairdo, it would only be fair!
But getting back to internet shopping. They say you can shop this way for everything, including clothes. So let’s say I contact a boutique and tell them:
“I am quite short, I am ok on top but rather round around the bottom, I like three quarter sleeves, and whatever you offer me should be wash and dry because I hate ironing!”
Question is: what would they offer and what would I get?
And then let’s consider shopping for shoes; I often see shoes advertised in magazines, one can get them in all colors and in all sizes, but how does one try on about a dozen pairs of shoes on the internet as I usually do in the shop before buying? How would I know if one of the shoes will pinch my big toe?
In addition, if I sit in my arm chair and do all that virtual shopping I can look forward to chronic laziness and nightmarish obesity.
In short, I don’t like the idea, although it has some fairy tale connection, it’s like Aladdin''s magic lamp and the genie that I tell: “Bring me this and bring me that!” It’s just so that Aladdin never had to pay for the things he got, while I would have to pay and occasionally overpay.
So in the meantime I’ll continue being happy with my primitive cell phone which can only receive and deliver messages, keep an alphabetical directory, take photos, gets me SMS messages, reminds me of birthdays, shows me missed messages, saves my drafts, and deletes unwanted correspondence.
Come to think of it, my cell phone isn’t even that primitive, or is it?
Lucca