Well, I suppose it had to happen sooner or later. My daughter has started spending money. Why is this such a significant event at our house? She’s only 2 and a half years old. Let me explain.
We have been letting her use the computer a little bit. We’ve got one of those “notebook mice” (which basically means it’s a miniature version of a standard mouse), which she is getting very good at using. It’s a goal of mine to have her learn to use the computer proficiently. Both applications and the operating system. I don’t want her to grow up not understanding how computers work because I know it’s going to be such an integral part of her life. It doesn’t hurt that I’m a geek too.
I created her a website that has pictures of each of the different sites that she likes to play at (Disney, Charlie and Lola, Little Einsteins, Dora etc). She knows how to move the mouse around and click on the picture to go to that site. Now, normally we don’t let her do this by herself. Yesterday, my wife was doing some laundry and ran in to the laundry room to switch the clothes from the washer to the dryer. By the time she got back to the kitchen/living room, she noticed that an Amazon page had just popped up with her order confirmation on it. What????? Somehow our daughter had managed to bring up Amazon.com (I’m guessing she must have opened up the history or something) and clicked on a button. My wife had turned on “one click ordering” some time ago and Bam. We were the new owners of “The Best of the Electric Company”. You may recall that show from many years ago. I believe it was on public television. I can remember watching it a few times and can remember enough to know that I don’t want the “Best of” series.
My wife called Amazon right after it happened and was told that the order was already in the process of going through shipping. What??? Already? We were told that we need to write “refused” on the box and it would be returned for full credit, including shipping. I guess we’ll see how that goes. My wife had the Amazon customer service rep turn off one click ordering so that this won’t happen again. Incidentally, did you know that “The Best of the Electric Company” costs about $40 shipped? (Can you believe she didn’t choose “free shipping”?)
m@ says
Bah, could’ve been worse :-)
~Dawn says
Wow M@- no kidding!
I loved electric company, Morgan Freeman was in it too
Michael says
Creating the website for the kid to start from … that’s brilliant. Our 3yo daughter has had to tough it and learn to work from her own (permissions-limited) desktop.
It is amazing to me to watch her with the computer … and to think back to me and my first Apple IIc.
Scary, scary, scary.
Dan says
Good thing she didn’t find bluenile.com
Jonathan says
1-Click ordering bad. ;)
LOL @ Dan’s comment.