easier than stalking the mailman.

I heart the internet.

I'm part of that digital generation, one of those people who only vaguely remembers life before the internet. I was 12 or 13 when my parents got their first dialup AOL account, and there's been no turning back since. Now I live alone and I refuse to pay any money at all for even basic TV service, but I shell out $45 a month for broadband without a second thought. Those are my priorities.

I've done all my Christmas shopping online. I'm down to getting just a couple more last gifts, and then I am finished. I've got FedEx, UPS, and the USPS leaving notices and packages at my door practically every day. Trouble is, I shop for things for other people and end up seeing things that I myself would like to find under the shrubs outside my apartment door. I've had to limit myself. It's the accepted season of giving and receiving, but no one really says anything about what you give to yourself. My mother asked me what I wanted for Christmas. I told her, "I dunno. But if you can't find anything, you can just pay me back for the stuff I bought myself."

Online shopping has gotten even more exciting in the past couple of years with the invention of tracking. I love this idea. I like to log onto my online accounts and then click the link to be transported to UPS or FedEx or the USPS website to find out just where my packages were last sighted. It's so exciting to see the natural progression of my purchases from some warehouse in Maryland or Texas or Michigan all the way to Lewisville, NC. Tracking brings out the full spectrum of emotions. There's the initial excitement at seeing that first entry that says "Shipper notified of package." Then there's frustration when it was scanned for arrival in Tempe at 3:14 AM five days ago and it hasn't moved since. Then comes the confusion when it ends up in Albany, which is by no means on the way to Lewisville from Tempe. And finally comes the relief when you see that blessed description "On the truck for delivery at local facility" at 7:38 this morning. Then you've got nothing left but worry when you see "Left on doorstep in full view of sticky-fingered neighbors" at 9:04 AM and you've got another three hours before your lunch break.

Tracking is great. It's all the excitement of a private detective in a film noir without having to find out who your wife is sleeping with on the side. Plus, when it's all over, you've got a present! For someone else, I mean. Yeah, someone else.