For reasons I do not fully understand (except bluntly to control those who may surreptitiously infiltrate the gated community) we have been told by the estate agency to have any delivery directed to the office of the estate agent rather than directly to ourselves at the townhouse. It is both an inconvenience and a convenience because while having to persistently track the delivery to the estate agency we are spared the insufferable obligation to remain in the townhouse all day awaiting the doorbell to ring (assuming one must sign for receipt).

All this perturbing fuss arises as I am sure you have already discerned from the current retail innovation of on-line shopping. Except for bespoke items and antiques there is no imperative to go to stores any longer. You can purchase your groceries on-line and have them delivered. Apparently you can buy cars on-line too; and likewise have them delivered. It is a fashion which is relatively new to me but which, judging by the pervasiveness of Amazon, UPS and USPS trucks, I perceive to be the new standard.

The indisputable attraction of on-line shopping for me is twofold; one, I don’t have to haul myself about in public; and, two, the capacity to review endless alternatives and then choose precisely what one wants (which in my case means for example the correct waist size, inseam, pocket depth, colour and length). For one such as I – that is, in the Big and Tall department – this is a cosmic definition, sparing me as it does the anxiety of finding something that fits. In short on-line shopping removes the quandary of searching everywhere or having to make unwanted adjustment as a default.

On-line shopping does however impose a requisite familiarity with a knowledge of Product Detail, both its latitude and its interpretation. The industry’s erstwhile tactile communication (touching and trying things on) has been replaced by a strictly literary one. Everything depends upon what is stated in (and in some instances, what is omitted from) the narrative accompanying the product. This means that in addition one must avoid the photos which are always eulogizing. Instead one must read the posted information while acknowledging not all is either stock or complete.

While I hesitate to say so because it sounds so immediately out of touch and because it is beyond the immediate scope of on-line shopping, the adage “you get what you pay for” is not without its merit and attention. Nonetheless it does not assure that you get what you want. Many of men’s expensive clothing products for example are still made for young, slim Italians who have questionable acquaintance with those of us in the broader categories shall I say. Tommy Hilfiger products I find are particularly guilty of this unintelligence. More reliable translations of product detail are afforded by Ralph Lauren, Old Navy and Tommy Bahama as well as Dillard’s house product Roundtree & Yorke.

While returning home late this afternoon from my swim in the Gulf of Mexico upon my tricycle outfitted in my new HODo swim shorts (which I had earlier collected from the estate agency), I chanced to stop at the gatehouse to enquire of the guard whether there were any prohibition related to the delivery of items by retailers. I had been doubting the earlier advice of the estate agent in this regard for two reasons; one, it may have represented a model most frequently applicable to short-term interlopers rather than long-term sojourners such as we who are therefore unlikely to contaminate the use of the landlord’s mailbox; and two, my legal training motivated me to prefer the superior dominion and advice of the condominium corporation to that of the estate agent barring naturally any unforeseen – though highly doubtful – instruction from the landlord to the contrary (especially in our instance when we understand the landlord is dead and in England and represented by her estate trustee who is her son). In the result it appears to be a small and unlikely accommodation of the landlord’s proprietary interest for us, should we choose to do so in the future, to have a delivery rendered in situ or the mailbox across the laneway (or as the guard at the gatehouse suggested, deposited at the front door of the townhouse which I suspect is the more probable destination).

Meanwhile my inflated and protuberant belly has adjusted exceedingly satisfactorily to the new parachute-size swim suit which now hangs in my bedroom awaiting its next illustration abroad.