Danny McBride, 1047 words

Did you ever buy anything out of a catalog?  Or online?  Or from the back of a cereal box?  I’m guessing the answer is yes, at one time or another.

The probability exists that whatever it was that you bought you already knew exactly what it was going to be, such as a CD from a music site or record club.  Or maybe a book.  Or perhaps even a stuffed beanbag toy or some casual clothes.  Although if what you bought was from the back of a cereal box it may not have been exactly what you thought it might be.  “Objects pictured are likely to be slightly larger than the actual item will be when it arrives”.  Like, oh, ten times larger than the actual item.

And this is the reason dot-coms are floundering.  The people who want you to believe that because you saw something online it will be exactly what you saw when it comes are the same people who once sent away (from a cereal box) for “Authentic Navy Frogmen” powered by baking soda.  You put the baking soda (or was it baking powder- -who knows?) into one of the feet of these little hard plastic frogmen and as the stuff bubbled out it was supposed to power the little guy (no larger than a child’s thumb) around a dish of water (or your fish tank before you got caught).  Of course the “Authentic Navy Frogman” sank like a stone and the fish died.  Mr Frogman had been pictured on the box as almost life-size.

Or maybe you sent away for Captain Midnight’s “Secret Decoder Ring” so you could decode the secret message at the end of each show.  You had to send enough Ovaltine labels to meet the quota.  The whole family was stuck drinking the stuff whether they liked it or not so as to not have a lifetime supply- -minus labels- - take over a whole kitchen cabinet.  When that wondrous day came and the “Secret Decoder Ring” arrived, all you had to do was wait for Saturday morning and that week’s message.  The first week I cracked the code!!  It said: “Drink Ovaltine”.   Ahhh!!

So it was also with the doll ads my sister fell for.  They walked and talked and wet “just like a real baby”.  Well, no.  Of course Barbie did none of these things but you knew that already.  She was the role model for every girl who wanted to live in Malibu and drive a Corvette and not have to have a job.  What was it Barbie did for a living?  Hmm…“Escort Barbie”?  I guess that’s changed.

But what hasn’t changed is people buying stuff sight unseen.  This whole web commerce idea is built on this very premise.  And, what’s nuts is, that the same people who got conned for a few boxtops and quarters, now expect that if they raise a zillion million dollars to hype their website, we’ll flock there and buy stuff.  Or click on and buy stuff, or whatever.  But hey!!  We were flocked too.  We’re not that naïve anymore.

Some things we’ll buy, like a book or a CD, and sacrifice the immediacy of ownership for a cash savings if the price is better than going down to the mall.  We know what it is going to be when it comes.

But how about a car?  Especially a used one?  Don’t you want to kick the tires and take it for a spin?  We’re not talking about fifteen or twenty bucks here.  Don’t you want to look under the hood?  Of course, I have no idea what I’m looking at- -hoses- -wires- -belts- -and humming parts.  But I’m reasonably well informed on many things and so there’s a chance I know what’s under a car’s hood.  Ha!!  The engine!!  But the salesman doesn’t have to know I don’t know what anything is.  “Runs quiet.”  “Yeah, like a charm.”

So it may come as a shock for you to find out that a used car website has gone out of business.  Not some “Mom & Pop” operation.  These guys had raised $137 million dollars to get started over the past two years, according to a report written by David Barboza in a recent New York Times “Technology” column.  In January of this year iMotors.com hired away Lloyd D Ward, the former head of the Maytag company (not the guy sleeping through the TV commercials) and in less than four months they went out of business.  I can’t get the right size shirt and casual shorts through a catalog without sending them back for an exchange.  “Some of our sizes run a little large or a little small- -buy something and find out which.”  I would buy a used car online?  Right.  Does it come with an “Authentic Navy Frogman”?  Mr Ward now has the opportunity to hang out with the Maytag repairman waiting for the phone to ring.

Also recently another online retailer, Kozmo.com, failed.  According to an article by the Times’ Jayson Blair, these guys raised almost $280 million and couldn’t make a go of it.  They sold stuff and delivered it right to your home within the hour.  My neighbor used them once or twice.  A guy in a dayglow orange windbreaker with the logo on the back drove up on a matching dayglow orange motor scooter- -for a sandwich and a Coke.  The local Chinese take-out does it in twenty minutes, but without the clothes or the motor bike.

And the cycle continues.  Today I noticed my kid’s cereal box features a “PokJmon Talking Spoon Offer”.  Under the picture of a huge Pikachu and friends is a caution that “actual size is 1½" x 7"”.  Even the cereal pictured on the front of the box warns “enlarged to show texture”.  Like my finger here- -raised in the universal unidigital salute- -can you see the cuticle?

The list of dreamy dot com failures continues to grow.   Hundreds of millions of dollars to make lead balloons fly.  It’s done now, however, or soon will be.  I hope not before I can raise a little capital for my own new venture: www.swampland.com.  Maybe the frogmen can swim in that.

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