Late-Night Delivery

On the day that I learned that Mark Zuckerberg gave the tangerine turd a million dollars for his inauguration, in 2025, I closed my Facebook account. I dropped off Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp, never to look back.

The same with Jeff Bezos. I closed my Amazon Prime Account and removed Prime from my Apple TV box.

I had already quit Twitter the moment that Elon Musk bought it, so I had no association with that a-hole.

I've been very good about shopping Canadian, even if it costs us a bit more for some of our goods. I have no regrets about supporting Canadian businesses, especially when I find that business is local.

We've gone without some goods that we regularly stocked up on before the tangerine turd started spewing about making my country the fifty-first state, but a year later, we're doing just great. We'll buy from almost any other country if something isn't available in Canada.

In preparation for a kayaking trip to Lake Superior, DW and I want to make sure that we have everything we need. DW has been an avid camper, even when I wasn't joining her, and she's quite proud of the gear that she has for every occasion: from solo camping tents to ones that would hold our whole family; from car-camping equipment to light-weight, portable devices.

Because we plan to be off-grid for four nights—possibly, longer if the weather doesn't cooperate—we have begun thinking about how we're going to keep all of our electronic devices powered up. We have our phones and watches, though my watch can go for up to three weeks between charges. We have our cameras and video recorders, and I have my drone.

DW and I each have a power bank with a combined capacity of 38,000mAh. They're not powerful enough to charge everything for the number of days we'll be away.

So, on Saturday, we started researching solar panels. We need one that generates enough watts to charge our power banks so that we can then charge our devices.

We saw a whole bunch that were reviewed by different YouTubers—some reviewers were American and some were Canadian. When we saw the solar panels that they reviewed, our first task was to determine where the panels were manufactured and where the company originated.

Some were American made, and no matter how highly rated they were, we discounted them. Two reviewers highly recommended one brand of portable solar panels, with one of them stating that they were made in Ontario, Canada.

The great thing about these solar panels was that they didn't take up a lot of space, folding neatly to the size of a tablet and only a couple of centimetres thick. It had several metal gromets for securing the panels to a backpack or—my choice—the deck of a kayak, and included four carabiners to help keep the wind from blowing it around.

Best of all, the solar panels were waterproof up to a metre for an hour. That means that if I were to tip over in my kayak with it clipped to the deck, it could handle the water more than long enough for me to right my boat.

DW and I have practiced water rescues a couple of times and I'd be able to get back in my kayak with the panels still attached to the fore deck.

When we had decided that this was the solar solution for our trip, we were ready to place an order. No longer Amazon customers, we decided to order directly from the company.

It was at this point that we learned two things:

1. The cost of shipping was going to be almost half the price of the panels.
2. The panels are actually made in Japan but the company is based in Ontario, CA, as in California.

One of the YouTubers had his information wrong.

"That's that," I said. "We'll have to go with something else."

"California is fighting the good fight," said DW. "I don't mind supporting them. We're not going to find better solar panels."

She was right. There were no better solar panels for what we needed. "But I don't want to pay that much for shipping. We'll have to see if there's a store in the Ottawa area where we can find it."

We couldn't.

"Amazon is offering one week of Prime for 99 cents," said DW. "Bezos isn't going to make any money if I use them to ship the solar panels to us."

True. Even though we have a distribution centre a few kilometres away from our neighbourhood, the cost of gas, alone, would be more than a buck. I didn't like the idea of Bezos getting a percentage of the sale, but I was willing to bend, this once. And in a week, we'd be gone again.

DW held her nose and placed the order on Saturday afternoon.

Something stirred me early on Sunday morning. I remember opening my eyes just enough to determine that it was still dark. I could hear birds in trees, outside, singing their morning songs, so I knew it was at least 3:30 (I know this because I did some background work, a couple of weeks ago, and one gig had me out until that time, and I heard the birds as I pulled into my driveway).

Had I felt my watch buzz on my wrist? I've set up some routines on my phone that make everything silent at midnight, with a few exceptions: if anybody in my family calls, and if a person is spotted on my front steps by my doorbell camera.

I tried to fall back to sleep but couldn't, and after laying there for a while, I checked my watch for the time. It was just after five.

Thinking that my watched must have stirred me, I picked up my phone to see if I had missed a call. Instead, I saw a message that a person had been spotted at my door.

I went to the doorbell-cam app and saw someone wearing a headlamp and reflective vest. They were bending over my welcome mat. Because of the glare of their headlamp, I couldn't make out the face.

Our doorbell only captures still images, now that we cancelled our Google subscription for the full services. It was one more way that we weren't going to be shopping from an American company.

For a moment, in my sleepy haze, I thought that someone was stealing our welcome mat. It's a recent purchase that shows three cats, sitting, with their backs faced forward. Two of the three cats bear a striking resemblance to two of our cats, and we bought the mat before Kid 2's cat came back home.

But then I saw the photo just before the one of somebody bending over, and they were holding a package. It was our solar panel being delivered—apparently, at 4:30.

I now hated Jeff Bezos even more. Why are deliveries being made so late at night? Why does Amazon feel they need to work employees at all hours? We didn't need this item within 12 hours of ordering it.

I'm glad we only have the service for one week. We've ordered only one item and paid only 99 cents to have it delivered, rather than 50 times that much.

But that's the last time. DW has promised me that we wouldn't go through Amazon again. She agreed that Bezos lining his pockets by paying people less than living wages to deliver in the middle of the night is not a business model we want to support.

We're thinking wisely about any other gear we'll need for this trip.