I don’t know if you’ve heard of the Amazon “Echo” or not. It was kind of in the news for a while when it was first introduced, but we haven’t heard a lot about it lately, mostly, I think, because they haven’t really shipped a lot of them. If you don’t know, it’s a little Pringles can size unit that has microphones and a speaker and it connects to your home WiFi. The idea is you can ask it questions or tell it to play music or whatever. I think it’s somewhat smarter than Siri (not exactly a high bar) but quite a bit more limited than “OK Google.” But the idea was it would add features and better integration as time went on. Really something that, to me, sounded both stupid and like something I wanted. Of course, as is the way of things these days, you needed to “request” an “invitation” for the privilege of spending your $200 on the thing, though Prime members would get it for half price. No way would I spend $200 on it, but $100 made me at least consider it ($49.99 would be better). So I procrastinated, but then the guy I work with said he ordered one and I hate to be left out, so I went for it.

By the time I got my “invitation” (January), they were anticipating mine would ship by May, but by fiddling around with the shipping speed, I eventually got them to promise delivery by April 9th – which, you may have noticed, is today. Or course, that status of the order has remained “not yet shipped,” so I wasn’t really anticipating it to arrive today. And, truth be told, my lust for this rather stupid item has diminished greatly over the past four months, and I’ve been tempted to just cancel the damn thing. But, hey, I ordered it and for some reason I tend to feel obligated to keep my word – even if it’s to a corporate conglomerate that uses what’s close to slave labor in its distribution centers so that I can get my case of toilet paper delivered on time every month (which reminds me, I need to skip a couple deliveries – it’s only the two of use and we got a few cases backed up).

But then today I got an e-mail saying “sorry” but we aren’t shipping your goddamn talking Pringles can until like the end of June or July now, and do I still want it? You know what? No. No I don’t. I really didn’t want it anymore anyway, and Google tells me everything I need to know, whether it’s on my phone, my tablet, or in my web browser. And if I’m in need of a frustrating experience, I can always talk to my work iPhone. Plus the guy I work with said he cancelled his Echo order, too, so I don’t have to worry about hearing how great it is and then having to buy it for full price just to keep up.

So, thank you Amazon. You just saved me $100.