Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for October 05, 2023

…that didn’t work.

Yeah. The decoder ring didn’t get here much sooner. The puffed rice Eskimo totem poles were way cool though. 8^ )

Are they in those boxes that were stored in the attic? You should get them out for the next time that Janis wears a flannel nightgown!

All of your hard earning money is in cardboard, Arlo

But what time does the Amazon truck arrive?

Amazon drone!

Janis is having what I would call a good day!

And everyone knows exactly why boys ordered those x-ray glasses, right?

Good thing he didn’t order the cardboard submarine.

He should have ordered the Ray Milland x-ray glasses

Keep those package boxes away from the yard sale stuff!

You should have chosen the sea monkeys

Arlo must also have ordered that little piece of tin that enabled you to be a ventriloquist in only one day. The dried sea monkeys that could become your home aquarium just by putting them in water was a winner too.

I thought they were trying to get rid of junk.

Remember those comic book ads hawking Honor House products?

But Arlo still couldn’t see through clothing with the glasses. What a rip-off.

As a kid, I remember seeing the print ad in the back of a comic book hawking “x-ray glasses” showing lightning bolts coming out of the lenses. I wanted to send off for some, but my dad explained they were a scam. So, I settled for a package of “sea monkeys” which to my disgust were just brine shrimp.

Don’t remember what it was that had been ordered, by the time it finally did come I had completely forgotten I was waiting for it. Way longer than Arlo’s 3 months.

I got my decoder ring in less than 3 months. All the boys were probably ordering the X-ray glasses. ;-)

They are supposed to be taking things out not briniging more in

Ah, happy memories of a toy pull-string helicopter.

my how times change… Hey, wait. I’m not that old! :{

I remember waiting about that long for a mechanical pencil that was shaped like a baseball bat. c 1955

You probably still do. It takes months for rebates on computer parts

So much for down sizing before the move…

We all know about the decoder ring by now, Ralphie. The secret message is “Drink your Ovaltine.”

I recall the Charles Atlas muscle building program, with the 98 lb weakling!

If it’s coming from China it still takes three months. The only difference now is that you didn’t know that.

People can say what they want, but I for one like that USPS has an Informed Delivery website that lets me know if I’m going to get any mail that day. Heck, it even shows me a pic of what mail I can expect to arrive.

I hear you Arlo. Had to wait a whole WEEK when I sent away for my Sea Monkeys!

And they usually broke after 20 minutes.

I remember that ad well on the back of comic books.

The other day when I realized there were only 83 days to Xmas (every day is a shopping day now) I thought how mail orders when I was a kid were always quoted as 6_8 weeks.

I remember ordering back issues of comics and waiting months for them to arrive. But when they arrived it was an immense joy.

I saved my popsicle wrappers to get a pair of swim goggles. They worked, but I didn’t learn to swim for another twenty years.

Bazooka Joe bubblegum wrappers could be saved for various things you mailed the wrappers and eventually i received a fake pearl necklace or was that mallow cups?

I ordered a 2024 appointment planner from Amazon yesterday about 11am It was delivered by Office Depot about 3 hours later.

Amazon has totally spoiled me as far as online shopping goes. Yes, I am an Amazon Prime member. Love it, not for the regular Amazon stuff but for all the FREE books I get to read. Since I became a Prime member my monthly bill has shrunk over 50%

I get my contacts from my optometrist and they last for several years.

“…. but it was worth it!!”

In 5th grade I sent away for a packet of things – sneezing powder – didn’t work, a few other things I forget, but 1 really worked. It was a fake ink spot to put under a fountain pen, and in class while the teacher was away, I slipped it on her open grade book putting the spot over my grades and her pen next to it. She believed it for a moment when she returned. ( A classmate friend brought in, um fake, uh, dog….ok it looked stupid even on the floor, and she guessed correctly that it was…fake) The pen spot wouldn’t work today because not only do most people not use fountain pens, but most today don’t even know or can only vaguely recollect them.

Because of course our boy Arlo had X-ray specs.

I was just commenting to a friend a few days ago about how we had to wait 6 to 8 weeks for items that we would order from the comic books, in the 60’s for me. Do comic books even have those anymore?

You had to wait 6 weeks only AFTER finishing off 12 boxes of cereal so that you could send the required amount of box tops in to qualify for your prize!

I never understood why these cheap mail order items took so long to get. It was extremely frustrating for the kids. Heck, I still don’t understand. I guess there was no hurry from the seller, once they had the poor kid’s money. Now we typically get things from Amazon in like 2 days, and Ebay purchases in less that a week. Even stuff coming directly from overseas is pretty fast.

And they didn’t work!

Ordered real soap that turned your face black when you washed with it. Soap came-it was a black cake. lol.

We were in Vancouver and all the relatives were in England. Every Christmas the presents would start drifting in by February or March. Usually squashed flat in the hold of some Royal Mail Steamship…

Back in 1961 I ordered a Knight R-100 receiver kit (and matching speaker!) from Allied Electronics. They shipped it by Railway Express and my poor dad had to drive down into deepest downtown Baltimore to pick it up. Apparently the USPS at the time couldn’t handle it and, of course, there was no UPS, FedEx, DHL at the time. The R-100 wasn’t even particularly large or heavy. Now we can order a 70 inch flat screen TV with our phone and have it arrive at the front door in a day or two. That’s some real progress. Too bad some other elements of our society haven’t kept up or have even regressed.

We tend not to order things unless we absolutely need them and there is absolutely no other way to get the items.

Back when we started in the handcrafted business I walked out to run errands and found UPS leaving a roll of batting on the driveway – told me if I had a business name he would not have been able to leave it when I complained – I pointed it out was a business name. Another time I came home and there was a box of bolts of fabric left behind husband’s car – again, they left it when someone home. (Back then they were supposed to ring the bell and get a signature.)

Had one medical insurance co that changed rules after sign up – they had to ship husband’s insulin instead of local pickup. Delivery left it outside in mid summer when too hot for the insulin without ringing the bell – and the 2 day delivery was 3 day delivery had taken 5 days as they left the package in their location first – no good when we got it.

A couple of months into Covid husband got a coupon from BJs for free delivery of an order. We put together an order which was mostly for meat items and put it through online. Almost immediately we started to get texts that they were out of this item, that item…. there were suggestions for alternatives – including a bag of ice instead of chicken(?). Delivery was to be to the door on the right – they delivered to door in middle of house (the one that always has ants on it in summer) and what if the doors were for different people? Husband then had to contact them several times before we were refunded for the items we paid for and they did not have and did not deliver.

Next attempt at ordering, again during Covid to avoid going out, was from Walmart. Our WM stores here do not deliver, so this was ordered from their main office and was delivered by FedEx from across the US – locations from CA to MA and arrived spread over a week. 60% of the cans were dented -some almost in half. Boxed items (such as cake mixes) looked as if someone ha

I have been hearing singing commercials on the radio lately for Amazon. “Get your stuff from Amazon”