Sacramento, and off the edge of the world

Like a lot of other kids back in the 40's I spent a big part of my time waiting for stuff - a Sky King Decoder Ring (with secret compartment!), an FBI Decoder Badge (with magnifying glass!), a Lone Ranger Atomic Bomb Ring (I forget what atomic bombs had to do with the Lone Ranger but surely there must have been something). Every time the long wait started with cutting a coupon out of a cereal box and sending it in.

Now it starts with a click. I ordered a mouse. I really don't need a mouse but this is such a fantastically cool mouse, such an excellently beautiful mouse, such, in fact, a Mighty Mouse I couldn't resist. I could have bought one off the shelf by driving a few miles down the road but how primitive is that? Did I drive down the road? Oh no. I clicked. And ordered. FedEx ground.

Now sometimes when I order stuff from Apple it ships from a warehouse in Pennsylvania someplace and arrives right away, in a day or two. But sometimes it goes to Sacramento and drops off the edge of the world. That's what happened this time. Or maybe it's in a truck somewhere, in Nebraska. Stuck in a snow drift. Marooned until Spring. I have a FedEx tracking widget. Sacramento, it says. Has said. All week. OK, three days. Mostly all week. How primitive is that?

It'd be nice if they put a little thing on the tracker every day, wouldn't it? "Truckin' along through Nebraska." "Whizzing through Indiana."

I like the clicking but the waiting is still the hard part. It'd be nice if they could fix that.

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