A few days ago I decided to invest part of the money I made with my last story sale to buy me a fan. During the last three years both the fans we had here at home died on us, and the one that’s left is one of those huge wind machines they use during concerts to keep the musicians cool on stage under the floodlights. It’s a blast. Literally.

So on Friday I started browsing Amazon, while I transferred some money from my PayPal – where I had been paid for the story – on my credit card, because Amazon won’t accept PayPal, which is a nice little medieval thing, like when the Sultan in Istanbul would not accept the coins of the King of France, but would happily cash in the money from Italian Merchant Republics. Makes you wonder about the future of our civilization, right?
So, I have a credit card I use only for Amazon, and I fund when needed.

Anyway, after much browsing and searching, I found a perfect model, cheap and large enough to do its job, and that was the moment I discovered transferring money from PayPal to my credit card is OK, but not on weekends. So I had to sit on my order for two days – during which the price of the fan went up a 30%.
Go look for another model. Find another model. Wait for the money to get on the card.
And again the price went up a hefty 40%.

And yes, I get it – it was not like getting my fan from a merchant in La Hague, and have it delivered to Samarkand during the Black Plague years, but what the heck… this is supposed to be a hiperconnected, one-click-away sort of world.
The SF writer in me is heartbroken (while the Silk Road enthusias is having a field day, as you probably have guessed).

By the time I found a third model, the money finally appeared on my card – it was now 1 am this morning – in the meantime of course a storm had ripped away our skylight and all that.
I placed my order.
And my fan should be here by the weekend.
Hopefully.

Meanwhile I was thinking – isn’t the English language strange?
The title of this post would work for a post on buying a fan from Amazon, on buying followers on social media or reviews on that selfsame Amazon, or about fans that are so good they actually buy your stuff.
Curious, uh?