Cheap Plastic Crap from China
Yes, I'm easily manipulated.
The internet knows me well, and can get me to click on stuff more easily than I care to admit. One of its most successful strategies is to show me a picture of something so weird, I’ll click on it just to identify it (Amaz0n is particularly good at this, showing me circuit boards and odd bits of plumbing).
That’s how I ended up clicking on Cat Tarot cards. Thinking, like, what even is this?
I didn’t buy them. Then. I (almost) never buy the crap I click on. I just click to satisfy my curiosity. So, in the case of the Cat Tarot deck, I clicked to find out a) it was an incomplete Tarot deck, b) it was composed entirely of cat-based Tarot imagery, c) all the cards were sized for cats, not humans, and d) they were incredibly cheap (under $2!).
Weird. As I said, I didn’t buy them. Then.
I also didn’t buy the goofy plastic monkey thumb puppet that was pictured underneath the Cat Tarot cards. But I did click on it to look more closely. I don’t know how to describe the toy succinctly, it’s the one where you push on the base and the monkey does a flip on strings. I remember the toy from my youth and felt a tiny flush of nostalgia (a flush I’m sure the site has engineered). It was also under $2.
As we all know by now, once I clicked on those two toys, ads for them, and similar toys, flowed to me 24/7. The specific site I visited before (I’ll not mention the name) was particularly insistent, and with a eerily accurate sense of what would get me to click again. Tiny tumbling plastic monkeys in sets of five (I like monkeys). Cool rocks. Cat toys. Cheap plastic tops. Everything was cheap as f*ck. Like, unrealistically cheap.
I never bought any of it, but I often clicked, more than I usually do with clickbait ads. They had my number, and of course the site tracked anything I clicked on. One of the things that gave me pause was that the cheap crap was SO cheap, it couldn’t be real. I didn’t want to be burned. I’d never heard of the site before.
And then…they launched a Super Bowl ad. I’m not going to give them more advertising by repeating there name, but the ad was about effortlessly buying cheap crap (mostly clothes). Now, I knew they were a real site. It lent them cred.
I was doomed. I went back. Free shipping for orders of $10. Okay. I started adding cheap plastic crap to the cart, not sure I’d ever hit BUY. It took a long time to buy enough crap to hit that $10 limit. And once I did, the offer changed to free shipping and 40% off for orders over $20. Meaning anything I’d add would be nearly free. So I added $10 more of cheap plastic crap to my cart. Giant googly eyes. Baseball keychains. A real Tarot deck, in addition to the tiny cat Tarot deck.
Add to cart. Add to cart. Add to cart.
I made it to $20. Sat on the decision for a couple days, feeling stupid about spending $20 on a huge package of toys.
Then I hit BUY.
The stuff took about a week to arrive. The company is good at its job: they sent several emails, letting me know of the progress of my gigantic package of cheap toys across the globe (it’s a Chinese company, with a US subsidiary), and it created a real sense of suspense.
We got a couple big storms, which delayed things a bit. But one day, on an unreasonably bright sunny day between snowstorms, a day that had already brought me a couple of pieces of good news, I got an email that the package had arrived, and had been left in the mailbox. That the gigantic package fit inside our mailbox was a little worrying.
I walked to the mail, hopping between the remaining melting piles of snow.
It was a reasonably big package, despite fitting in the mailbox. I took it home, ripped it open, and began pulling out crap like clowns from a clowncar. All my dumb toys were in there. I have been playing with them for a few days now. I’m happy. The cats are happy (though they show no interest in the Cat Tarot cards). My wife is happy too (she got a cool rock, some magic wall-hanging tape, and many of the afore-mentioned monkeys).
Look. I know a ridiculous amount of carbon was expelled to get this cheap plastic crap to my door. The company has a pretty poor rating from the Better Business Beaureu. And, depending on your feelings about China, it may in some way be benefitting a poor actor on the world stage. And I know that during the time I was waiting for the toys, train derailments and toxic chemical fires filled the news, as compulsively lying elected officials walked the halls of Congress.
I know I was manipulated shamelessly to buy this crap.
I get it.
But on a sunny day, after several pieces of unexpected good news made their way to me, I was able to walk to the mailbox, bring home a big bag of dumb toys, and dump them on the kitchen counter.
Sometimes you just need to play with a plastic monkey.
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I’ve had nothing new on the writing front of late, but I should have one or two exciting writing announcements soon (some of the good news mentioned above, the same day I was retrieving the toys from the mailbox).
Until then, peace.
