Wishlist

Do you remember Christmas Lists?  The one time a year when you got to write down everything you wanted, knowing that getting it all was a long shot, but that's what Christmas was all about, right?  You took a shot, and you were happy if you got any of it.

In my house growing up, we did this on Thanksgiving weekend.  As we recovered from turkey and green bean casserole, we informed Santa about our most pressing needs.  Kitty's family apparently did not have such date-driven process and began their Christmas lists in August, but despite the heresy implied therein, the intent was still the same:  you had one shot, and you took it.

Changing subject a bit, in the past few weeks, Amazon.com has taken a lot of heat for their work culture.

This is nothing new for them - they've long been criticized for working people to their limits, whether it's the fulfillment centers in central Pennsylvania or their corporate offices in South Lake Union.

I don't care about any of that.

All of those "issues" have created corporate results that I embrace (as a Seattleite, they have driven my property rates up 20% in the last year, so they're AWESOME).  What I have an issue with is the pervasive cancer that is the Amazon Wishlist.

Finn's #1 priority upon returning home every day is his Amazon wishlist.  If a conversation with him does not include the word "wishlist" within 3 minutes, it means he's playing you.  I'll ask him how his day was at camp and the response will, within 7 words, come back to a new Lego set that he needs on his wishlist.

I know that I'm supposed to say that this is terrible, from a hippie, non-consumer-driven perspective, and it really is incredibly annoying if you don't enjoy the word "wishlist", given that this is now every third word that comes out of his mouth, it's also kind of awesome.

Amazon has done an amazing job at cross-merchandising - so amazing that I only need to log into the website and hand it over to Finn, before he's got 400 items in his wishlist.  Unfortunately, this now means that I need to pay much better attention to what he's actually adding.

Who would have thought we'd need parental controls on shopping?

Stupid "Adult Legos" (I'm sorry...)