The Amazon Countdown

By Malkie Gordon Hirsch Magence

The Amazon orders started arriving about a month before Jeremy’s kids from Israel were due to land.

Some days they trickled in—one or two boxes leaning casually by the door. Other days they piled up high, practically blocking the entrance. That could mean only one thing: they were getting ready to move in for what has now become their annual North American tour.

I’ve never experienced this Amazon-free phenomenon they talk about in Israel, but apparently it’s not so simple to just click “Buy Now” and have whatever you want show up at your doorstep a few hours later.

To me, that’s a double-edged sword. As someone hopelessly in love with the idea of ordering the most random things just because Amazon has literally everything, I still get a thrill from not having to leave my house to get something I clearly can’t live without.

As a kid born in the ’80s, I grew up having to convince my mother—relentlessly—that I absolutely needed the thing I wanted. Only after I’d annoyed her enough would she finally get in the car to buy it, just so I’d stop talking about it. The fact that now, decades later, I can tap a button and have it arrive without leaving the couch? Magic.

But I digress.

The truth is, we don’t need even a fraction of the stuff we order. We buy it because we want it, because it’s available, and because we live in an age of abundance where we’re rarely told “You can’t have that right now.”

The kids from Israel live without Amazon all year. They start a note on their phones months before their trip, like a child creating a birthday wishlist. They jot things down, drifting off to sleep imagining all those brown smiley-face boxes waiting for them when they arrive.

And let’s be honest—half the thrill is in opening the box.

Someone should bottle that feeling: knowing exactly what’s inside, tearing into it with gleeful abandon, and finally holding the thing you’ve been waiting for. It’s a joy many Americans have forgotten, dulled by overexposure to next-day delivery.

Today, we also visited another wonderland: Target.

My stepdaughter walked the aisles in a daze, whispering under her breath about how incredible it was to find absolutely everything she needed in one place. Between caring for the baby—bottles, diapers, constant little emergencies—she looked at me, wide-eyed, and asked if the Target superstore was even better than the smaller one I’d taken her to when they arrived.

“Oh, you can’t compare the two,” I said. The faraway look in her eyes told me she needed to see it for herself.

For them, shopping in places they can’t shop during the rest of the year is part of the magic of visiting. For me, it’s a reminder of what it felt like to truly wait for something.

These days, instant gratification is the norm. But when something is worth the wait, the joy of finally getting it is so much sweeter. n

Malkie Gordon Hirsch Magence is a native of the Five Towns community, a mom of five, a writer, and a social media influencer.