I finally got sucked into the Amazon Prime mind meld. In case you don’t know, Amazon Prime is a service where you pay $79 a year and have access free two-day shipping for about 75% of the goods Amazon sells. (Plus a Netflix-like streaming service, plus a Pandora-like music service that I don’t have the patience to figure out.)

This new compulsion started when I joined Amazon Prime on a trial basis last year, for xmas shipping. I stayed enrolled and let them bill my credit card because friends were raving about the service. Even though I’m not much for online shopping and couldn’t find many things on Amazon that: 1) I needed to buy, 2) that made sense to buy online, and 3) were priced competitively.

But recently I realized what the service actually is: an instant gratification machine. I blame a coworker: Every time we hold a “virtual meeting,” she constantly searches Amazon Prime for whatever we’re talking about and then sends me links. (Kinda like “There’s an app for that!”) She influenced me to order washable post-workout car seat covers while we were talking about hot yoga, and I don’t even do hot yoga. (But I did start doing regular yoga since that purchase, so… That’s good, right?)

The other day I was at a Big Box Retailer and my husband texted “See if they have those bamboo plate holders.” They did not. But I went home and saw that Amazon Prime did. Click–ordered.

Also at Big Box, I saw a child’s toy that I liked, so I bought it for myself. (I deserve the occassional cute plastic horse because I work hard, and I don’t care what anyone thinks about it!) The brick-and-mortar environment killer only had one such toy left, but Amazon Prime had all of them, so I ordered my faves and I’m getting them TOMORROW.

It’s kind of terrible. I feel kind of bad about starting this shopping-based habit, just when I’d gotten my compulsive shopping habit under control. (Hours of therapy talking about that unpurchased plastic horse = success!) But not really. I don’t really feel bad about it yet.

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