10 Things I've Learnt as a Result of Online Shopping

I'm having a slight panic attack about some items I've purchased that haven't arrived yet - and they are intended for Xmas, so for them to not be here yet is making me hyperventilate slightly. It's the control freak in me that's convinced I've been fleeced and I'll never get the gear. Basically, I didn't post it, so it didn't happen.

Yeah - online shopping is more stressful than regular Xmas-psycho shopping for me.

As a result, I have decided to list the following lessons as a result of my situation.

1. Online Shopping is awesome, convenient and easy - but if you happen to miss out on something at least in a shopping centre you can throw the person, who got the last pair of ballet flats in your size, a filthy look and decide to run them down in the carpark in an act of revenge.

2. Ordering things from the US or Canada when the Aussie dollar is doing well is a great idea - but forgetting that you live in a town where all mail is delivered by carrier pigeon (for more info read here) makes the distance your package needs to travel a fearful thing to consider.

3. Checking a combination of my Etsy inbox, Canada Post Parcel Tracking and my email 500 times per day does not make it more likely that my order has been processed and the delivery card being dropped into my letterbox as we speak.

4. Canada Post Parcel Tracking needs to learn to track items in order to have it's name apply.

5. Online Shopping makes checking your letterbox exciting every day because you might have that sacred parcel delivery card - it also makes it bitterly shite when your parcel card isn't there.

6. Optus, ANZ, Westpac, Power&Water, Council Rates and anyone else wanting money for services rendered or sending me more paper reminding me how much money we DON'T have in our bank accounts can bugger off. You are taking up valuable space in my letterbox that should actually be overflowing with parcel delivery cards. Please resume paper based communication once Christmas is over.

7. I now have an obsession with parcel delivery cards.

8. Driving past the post office repeatedly on the off chance that a postal worker will know who I am and flag me down to announce they just got a plethora of parcels for me, and to come in and get them is highly unlikely.

9. The parcel delivery people (or 'Contractors') that are hired by the Carrier Pigeon Postal Service (also known as Australia Post Darwin) are just plain crap. Apparently, no, they do not knock on your door to let you know they are there. Your options are:

• That they will park on the opposite side of the street from your home and sit on their horn until you come out of your house to see what the hell your neighbour is doing to their car. They then proceed to walk halfway across the street, throw your parcel at you and run away...OR
• That they will actually park in your driveway and sit there in silence until you happen to look out the front window and see someone with an Australia Post magnet and P Plates on their car burn rubber out of your driveway having left a 'You weren't home, so come and see us after 4pm with the other 150 people we've avoided today.  P.S: eat my dust.' card in your letterbox. You attempt to chase them, even though you're only wearing a singlet and your scungy undies because you've been doing housework. Once you give up on the chase you try your best to make it back home without the neighbours seeing you and reporting you to the police.

10. I don't like running the streets in my scungy undies and singlet - so I'm just going to let them leave me a parcel delivery card and pick it up after 4pm like everyone else.

So tell me, what has online shopping taught you?