In what has become a normal errand for many, I had to return something to Amazon. Back in the beginning of our national romance with the company, as they were wooing us and we them, they would come to our home and pick up things that were too large, the wrong color or not working. But as our mutual courtship has matured from infatuation into a multi-year marriage, they no longer feel it necessary to make that effort, and indeed, we have to go to them. It recalls my wife's observation about our own relationship. In the beginning, if we were out of the city and heading back to her place in town, I would pull into the garage in the bottom of her building. She says she knew I was getting both comfortable and serious about her when I stopped paying for parking, and started driving around looking for a spot on the street.
Amazon gives you multiple options to make returns depending on the item in question and your location. It might be Whole Foods or UPS, Kohl's or FedEx. We've cycled through all of them depending on what other stops we have to make and what we will be close to. At this point the default option in our household is Staples, as there is one in the middle of my usual circuit. Experience has also shown that they also have very few shoppers, making parking and returns quick and easy.
Usually it's a quick in and out process. I walk through the entrance, go directly to the service counter, have the clerk scan the stuff, and walk right back out the door. But this time, because I had to kill a few minutes waiting to pick up a visitor from the nearby train station, I decided to wander the aisles.
As a small business owner and a parent of long-ago school-age children, it's a store in which I used to spend a good deal of time and money. From office supplies to technology, from chairs to filing cabinets, from construction paper to glue sticks, they had it all. But as I did a slow amble around the aisles and looked at what was on the shelves, I realized none of it held any real interest. It wasn't just a matter of being able to get those things online at a better prices. The bottom line is that in terms of what they had, I didn't need anything. Ever again.
For sure I will still need to replace things that break or run out, whether it's paper or ink, a router or a mouse. But in general we have what we need. We have a closet full of basic office supplies, such as paper, pens and pencils. We have all the electronics we can use, as well as bags to carry the stuff when we travel. We've got wires to connect things and power supplies to charge. There will surely be new gadgets, toys that are faster or slicker, and might be fun to play with. But I no longer feel a requirement to be on the cutting edge; trailing from behind is just fine with me.
Indeed, it's a feeling I can extrapolate beyond this one particular store and its assortment of merchandise. Well beyond our office and its supply closet we have more than we need. Yes, we will have to replenish our supply of toilet paper. My socks are going to wear out. I simply won't allow us to run out of peanut butter and other rather important foodstuffs. But from the bedroom to the family room, from the kitchen to the garage, from the dining room to the living room, I would say we're good. We have achieved maximum stuff.
The fact is we need to go in the other direction, and minimize our accumulations. When our first kid went to college we said it was time to start cleaning the house out at least a little bit. That was some twenty-odd years ago, and we're still backing off for a running start. It's not that we're planning on going anywhere soon, but after 30 years in the same place we are pretty well set several times over. Reduced to pure arithmetic, our possessions have multiplied, and we need to divide what we keep and what we give away. In our current state, subtraction is way more important than addition.
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Marc Wollin of Bedford keeps finding things he has that he no longer needs. His column appears weekly via email and online on Substack and Blogspot as well as Facebook, LinkedIn and X.
