We are an Amazon Prime family.
This means we can get a jar of jelly and a toaster brought to our house whenever we want. Alternately, we could shop at a Walmart.
That said, there's something cool about having things hand-delivered to your front porch. It makes you feel like nobility. "Dilly, dilly," dang it.
Mark KennedyI'm not sure how our Amazon Prime membership materialized. Nobody in our house will admit to signing us up. Consequently, we can all act scandalized while using Amazon Prime guilt-free until the culprit confesses, which will probably never happen. It's a house of mirrors that means we will probably be lifetime Amazon Prime members.
If I was going to be hit with a surprise membership, why couldn't it have been something good like MENSA, or Augusta National.
Anyway, while we are pointing fingers at home, we are all using Amazon Prime's magical two-day free-shipping option. Our 16-year-old son orders car parts for his Toyota, our 11-year-old son orders scented fishing worms, my wife orders children's books and I order electronics.
Here's the thing: There is nothing free about Amazon Prime. We pay about $119 a year for the privilege of having goods delivered to our house a bit faster, a bit cheaper.
Walmart is happy to point out Amazon's free two-day delivery is not free. I heard a radio spot just this week touting the fact that Walmart has rolled out free two-day shipping that's actually free well, free-ish. The catch is that you have to order $35 worth of stuff each time, whether you need that much or not. Which means you might buy a $30 ice cream maker, and then need $5 in miscellany to fill out your order. This makes for some wacky, impulse ordering.
The public-relations team at Walmart has pored over two-day-delivery orders state-by-state to find out what we are ordering. They claim to have inspected the most-ordered items from every state looking for outliers that make each state unique.
In case you are wondering, Tennessee's claim to fame is that we order lots of Starburst fruit chews. Serious talk. We appear to have a sweet tooth for those little individually wrapped taffies. What kind of lard-derriered people order fruit chews online? It's not like Starbursts are hard to find. They are only available in every convenience store in America.
And is candy-eating really something you plan two days in advance? Do you say to yourself on a Wednesday afternoon, "Oh, Friday would be a good day for a sack of Starbursts. Let me fire up Amazon."
In case you are interested, here are some other state outliers Walmart found in its big data dig.
-Folks in Michigan love Fruity Pebbles, the cereal. "The Land of Fruity Pebbles" would make a boss license plate slogan, don't you think?
-Georgia people order lots of SIM cards for mobile phones. These are useful if you plan to steal somebody's phone or evade detection under the state's new "hands-free" phone law.
-Pennsylvanians order lots of paper shredders. Hmm. What are you people up to?
-Kentuckians are wild for peanut M&M's. Couple that with Tennessee's obsession with Sunbursts and Alabama's love for cake mix, and the "diabetes belt" has fresh meaning.
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-Virginians order lots of cornbread mix online. A piece of advice, Virginia: Cornmeal, plus eggs, plus milk equals cornbread. So nix the mix already.
-Folks in Maine lead the nation in ordering mosquito nets that fit over your head. This makes no sense whatsoever. Summer in Maine lasts for about 30 minutes. Things like this are why Southerners are suspicious of Yankees. Maybe it's a fashion trend.
-Some other states defy understanding: New Jersey (pencil sharpeners), New Hampshire (teeth whiteners), Arkansas (disinfecting wipes) and North Carolina (inflatable air mattresses).
Good Lord, people. Please put the computer to sleep and get a life.
Contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6645.