Echo

For centuries, to buy something took a combination of three things. First you had to have the desire to own whatever it was. Next, you had to have the funds available to buy it with, and lastly you had to have the time and the means with which to go get it and you had to have all three of those things simultaneously. It’s one of the reasons my hair has been so long at some times during my life. One day I might have the desire to get my hair cut, but not the time. Weeks later I might have the desire and the time, but not the cash. It’s one of the reasons I will often have no beer or fresh vegetables in the house during the winter months. It’s not that I don’t want them, or can’t afford them. It’s mostly that I don’t want to go out in the cold to get them.

But now, desire can be triggered by a television commercial much like the candy display at the grocery checkout, electronic banking has disconnected us from our money, electronic domestic assistants can order things for us at a mere vocal suggestion, and online delivery services will bring our goods to our doors for only a modest fee.

All that’s left to protect us from over indulgence and over-extension is our innate sense of self-restraint which has been under constant bombardment by the purveyors of everything for decades. “Buy it now”. “Enjoy it now”. “You deserve it” we are constantly told with nary a whisper of the payment that will later be required.

Echo. Order peperoni pizza, Sham Wow, and a valentine Snuggy.

We’re doomed.

But that’s just what an average guy thinks