Dear Internet…

I am writing to tell you that you have a problem. I know it was probably bad parenting, but these things get out of hand and someone has to be a friend and tell you how you are perceived by others. You are grown up, now, and no longer can claim that problems occur because you are new. So let me be your friend and tell you the truth—there is more to life than shopping.

I know, it doesn’t seem possible in a world with so many shiny things, but it is. Your geeky brother, Wikipedia, has tried to help you out, but he is sometimes rather far down in the options. And real information can be harder to find than a lost kid at the state fair.

Dear, the way you do your sales pitches is appalling. My daughter sent me an inquiry about a pair of pants over text. I texted her back. Now, I get ads for those pants and ads from other vendors showing similar clothing. SHE wanted them! Grammas don’t wear the same things. Where are the clothes fitting for who I really am?

And, there is the issue of coming along behind. If I order a tv stand, as I did from a website, I do not need to order more tv stands. But you send me tv stand ads for months. This is not helping you or me.

Then there are the sketchy vendors—do you not vet these things? I once ordered a bicycle rear view mirror. Because it was cheap and Facebook took the ad, I figured it would be fine. It was not fine. Even Facebook sent me a text asking if I had heard from the vendor. I said I had not, but believing people advertise things to sell them, I did not leave a nasty comment. A month later, the mirror arrived! Hurray! My son says it didn’t really work out, but I ordered it and they did get it here in under a year, so it’s all good. After all, my granddaughter’s necklace took the slow boat and its arrival took much longer than the mirror!

Because you cannot seem to police yourself, I now have to go to the BBB before ordering. I research these things, now, too. The mirror people gave me a website name. I found that the name was a domain up for sale by a Chinese company. At that point, I wrote off my $30, but since you did come through, we will call that a good buy. Right now, I have constant ads for Anthony Richard shoes. I love the shoes. But the vendor advertising them has a “C+” rating and I learned back in middle school that you don’t engage in a group project with kids who make “C’s.” So, you created a “need” (pretty shoes are a need to women) and now you cannot fulfill it. Naughty, naughty, internet!

We should also discuss clothing. I can manage size issues, except for the size nine shoes you sent that would have made good canoes for a family of four. But quality needs to be a bit better! I mean it! I bought a pink sweater that fell apart after one washing. And I knew the vendor! Are you dumping the bad stuff on line? Do we really have to discuss this?

One more little thing you could correct—and I know I’m being hard on you—is to take us to the website we ask for. It is annoying that you take money to put businesses in front of the actual web site so we cannot find it. I am not clicking on I’ll-find-it-for-you.com when I know what it is and how I should be able to get to it. Just sayin’…trying to be a friend, here.

Do you know why I won’t take the new search engine you are pushing? I guess you do not. If you did, you would not have told me that I need it because it makes SHOPPING easier. No woman needs easier shopping, trust our husbands on that. It is far too easy now! Amazon lets me order by pushing a single button. I would smack them for that, but I use it too often for my complaints to sound credible and they do give me cash back. I am not using an easier shopping search engine, Internet.

You know how we tell our children to beware of bad companions? Well, you are coming close to those warnings. Did you know, for instance, that I once ordered something and when you offered automatic fill-in the-blank shipping, you listed a name that was someone I knew over twenty-five years ago! I do not email, text, nor call them. I have not seen them in over twenty years. It’s creepy to watch people so closely, Internet. It makes us not trust you.

If we engage with you, Internet, we fear losing our reality. Your shop, shop, shop message becomes more Hal the computer than helpful marketplace. We have lives. We need to look up from our devices to greet our children. They grow up fast and if we aren’t careful, you have us ordering Lincoln Logs for a twenty-two year old because we forgot they are real people and you are just a machine that keeps our eyes glued to your screen.

Did you know that people already share stories about you behind your back? The one I hear most often, and I’m sorry to have to break the news to you, is there is no way to reach you after a sale. That’s right! You suck us in and then spit us out. It’s rude, Internet, and we will stop liking you if you cannot correct that. “Find us online at youareasap.com” is not working. A phone number would be nice, because we are onto you. We know that the “contact us” option buried at the bottom of your page is Internet for we-have-your-money-so-we-really-do-not-care. Not everything ordered in the past year was on the ship that got stuck in the Suez Canal! We aren’t listening to that one!

I guess, Internet, that we will have to keep an eye on you. Like the schoolyard bully who challenges some little kid to put his tongue on a frozen post, we will have to think through every interaction with you. But fail to fix some of your issues and you may find more of us closing you out and going for a walk in the park. Other friends have failed us and they are out of business. So, you just think about that.