Monitoring The In-Box

I've done most of my Christmas shopping this year on www.Amazon.com.  Up until this year, I thought Amazon just sold books.  How wrong I was.  They sell everything.  While that should have made things easy for me, it's actually complicated things.  In fact, I think Amazon may actually be ruining my Christmas.

Kim's had an Amazon account for years.  So, when I started making purchases last week, I simply entered her login and password.  That pre-populated our mailing address and billing information.  All I had to do was check on the items I wanted, send them to the "shopping cart," and press the check-out button.  How simple.  In went item #1, quickly followed by items #2, #3, #4, and #5.  This was awesome.   In no time at all, I was pretty much done with shopping.  Or, so I thought.

You see, what I failed to realize was that Amazon also has Kim's e-mail address.  And, Amazon loves to send you e-mails.

• First, there's the e-mail confirming your order.
• Then there's the e-mail telling you that your credit card's been charged.
• Next, you get the e-mail telling you that your order has shipped.

Amazon sends you one of these e-mails for each item you purchased.  Even better, they reference the actual item in the subject line of the e-mail.

What a mess this has become.  I spent all day yesterday running to Kim's computer, checking her e-mail, and hurriedly moving items out of her in-box.  Even that wasn't enough.  Once or twice, while she was sitting at her desk doing e-mails, she yelled out "You got another one."  I'm sure she knows everything she's getting.

I've now added another item to my Christmas wish list for this year -- my very own Amazon account.  I think that would make two people very happy.