I'll Use Paypal

You probably think that on-line shopping is a breeze. If you're an old person, as I am, you might remember when, if you wanted to buy something, you had to actually leave the house and go to a shop. Not a "virtual store", or an "on-line mart", but a real shop, with a window at the front with wasps in it and a counter inside and an old gentleman wearing one of those special brown coats with a six-inch ruler and three pens in the top pocket.

Sometimes you had to go to two shops, or even more, to find the thing you wanted. And then you had to write a cheque. And bring the the thing you'd bought home on the bus, more than likely. And there'd probably be a light drizzle falling, and you'd get a bit wet and have to have a cup of tea when you got back.

AND SOMETIMES YOU COULDN'T BUY WHAT YOU WANTED BECAUSE THERE WEREN'T ANY LEFT!

Now, considering that millions of people on the planet have to walk miles each day just to collect clean drinking water, I tend to think that even the old style of shopping was pretty fucking easy. And shopping on-line is so phenomenally slothful it actually makes me feel guilty. Let's face it, there are no arguments, it's a piece of piss.

Paypal doesn't agree.

Their current advertising campaign invites you to compare the preferred option of "I'll use Paypal" with the following scene of drudgery and sheer exhaustion:

"I'll spend the next few minutes hunting around for my credit card so I can type out that number (yes, the really long one) across the middle, and that 3 digit thingy on the back. And, of course my expiry date. Oh go on then, and my billing address too."

God, that sounds completely ghastly. Positively inhumane. You might have to type in your credit card number! Well, fuck me. I wouldn't be surprised if the non-Paypal version of on-line shopping is ultimately subject to the same universal opprobrium as child slave labour or the use of landmines.

What next? As far as I know the smart money is on the development of a microchip implanted just behind your ear which will monitor your buying patterns over a period of time and then forecast what you want to buy before you even know you want to buy it, contact the website and your bank and sort it all out while you're asleep. You won't even have the stress of wondering when your stuff's going to arrive because you won't know you've bought it until the parcel arrives. Surprise! And it's just what you wanted!

The only time you won't get what you want is when it's clothing and the chip knows your arse is going to look huge. Then you'll probably just get a nice handbag.

Now that's the kind of technology that makes life easy. "I'll use Paypal" indeed. You're having a laugh.