By Sue Murphy
Last week, as I was slogging through the aisles at the big box stores, other people went merrily about their business while a professional personal shopper selected their cans of green beans. Later, when they were good and ready, they pulled into the store’s drive thru lane and a kindly vested person loaded the groceries into their trunks. They didn’t even have to get out of the car. In fact, if they didn’t even want to get into the car, they could have the whole mess delivered. It’s a new world, my friends.
If you don’t even want to plan your meals, you can have a week’s worth of food delivered to your house in kit form. The ingredients are pre-planned, pre-measured and pre-chopped. You still have to cook everything, but I’m guessing there will come a day when a chef comes included. If they’d throw in a follow-up tech to do the dishes, I’d sign up for sure.
Maybe, like me, you want your food to arrive already cooked. Pizza delivery is standard, but now just about anything you get a hankering for can be whisked right to your table. Steak and baked potato, salmon salad or pie a la mode? Just ask. The a la mode part would have to be transported in a special cooler, but these are professional delivery people, so I’m sure they have that all worked out.
Of course, no one lives on pie alone, a la mode or otherwise. A body needs clothing and tools and cute little knick-knacks to set on the coffee table, and amazingly, you can have all that delivered, too. Rose bushes? Duvet covers? Knobs for your kitchen cabinets? Sure. You can procure all that in your pjs. If you sign up for subscription service, you don’t even have to remember to order them. There are fruit of the month clubs and ink cartridge of the month clubs and wine of the month clubs (not in Alabama, sadly) that will do your restocking just in time.
Because my life is always a bit askew, my ordering is done on a piecemeal basis. My last Amazon order included a box of English Breakfast K-Cups, a two pack of refrigerator air filters and an off-season copy of the movie “Holiday Inn,” a grouping that would have been a sure disappointment for a porch pirate. Honestly, I don’t understand those guys. Sure, you’re getting something for nothing, but what? Their take can’t be that good most of the time. I suppose some people order gold jewelry and big screen TVs but the rest of us get deliveries of mundane items, shampoo and funny T-shirts and bouillon cubes they don’t carry in our local grocery store. Take a chance on jail time for a big box of things you might not be able to sell or even use? It doesn’t make sense.
Now, if you followed one of those car company trucks that deliver cars to their new owners, you might have something. The delivery people probably don’t just leave the car sitting in the driveway with the keys in the ignition, though. Never mind.
I recently saw two halves of a prefab home traveling down 280 on twin flatbed trucks. Home delivery of your new home. That’s the best one yet. As soon as the technicians glue the two halves together and put the numbers on the mailbox, the homeowners can order a pizza.
Home delivery. I love it, although I have to wonder how much you should tip the driver when he delivers you a house.
