By Annabel Monaghan

 

Pullquote: <Receiving unconditional love full time for two days? God only rested for one day, and I?m pretty sure Bezos works 24/7.>

 

Online shopping is to 2018 what the wheel was to 3500 B.C. It?s really a revelation. You click on a spatula and you?re flipping pancakes with it the next day. The ease of it can make me feel like Judy Jetson, but sometimes I long for the concrete shopping experience. There?s a certainty in being sold an item that you?ve seen in person and then leaving the mall with it in your hand. I currently have gifts flying around in the sky, presumably on their way to me, that I suspect may never touch down.

 

Three weeks ago, my sister sent me a link to a pair of pajamas that my niece wanted for Christmas. This to me is the ultimate luxury ? knowing exactly what to get, where to get it, and having a gift come to fruition after a few clicks and a zip code. It was a site I?d never seen before, but I immediately ordered the pajamas. For a fleeting moment, I kidded myself that I was actually winning Christmas this year.

 

Last week, as I was checking my list, I realized that they hadn?t arrived, so I emailed the customer service people and inquired. An auto reply came back to me immediately:

 

?Thank you for your email. We will respond as soon as we are able. If your email is received over the weekend, you will not receive a response until Monday because we are busy receiving unconditional love and support from our friends and family.?

 

I had to read this three times. When I decided that I?d read it right, I just thought: <Oh, for crying out loud.> Receiving unconditional love full time for two days? God only rested for one day, and I?m pretty sure Bezos works 24/7. Clearly this wasn?t an Amazon-type operation, likely based in a state with more lenient drug laws.

 

A few days later, I received a personal email addressing my pajama timing concern. It informed me that these pajamas are being hand made by seamstresses with 30 years of professional experience and that the process is quite slow. I had to stop reading. I closed my eyes, balled up my hands and thought: <Oh, please don?t say ?bespoke?.> For the love of all that is good, please don?t let me have bought bespoke pajamas!?

 

The fussiness behind that particular word makes me think of the recent tendency for people to ?curate? collections of things like tea bags, armchairs, and socks. Bespoke pajamas would be the last straw for me, the major snap of the holiday season.

 

It took all of my strength not to reply to this email. I know I would have used aggressive words like ?absurd? and ?avocado toast? and would have limited my chances of ever being able to spend a weekend receiving unconditional love and support from these people.

 

So, I wait for the pajamas. They might not be here until the new year, but they?ll be hand stitched. And probably a little irregular.