Amazon Confessions

I browsed over twenty-five beach wagons. That is not a typo. Twenty. Five. I could have read a doctoral thesis on supply chain logistics in the time I spent comparing wheel diameters and fabric denier counts.

The browsing history tells a story: it starts with the sensible $35 wagons, escalates through the $60-$80 "all-terrain" range, briefly detours into a $200 luxury wagon with cupholders (I hovered on that one for eleven minutes), and finally panic-lands on the $126 VEVOR because my daughter needed it for the beach on Saturday and the $40 one got cancelled.

The VEVOR converts to a bench. I have converted it to a bench zero times. But I think about the bench feature every time I drag it across a parking lot. 'I could be sitting right now,' I tell myself, while sweating through my shirt.

There is a man out there who researches the net worth implications of Fannie Mae's conservatorship exit with the intensity of a trial lawyer, and that same man spent three consecutive evenings reading Amazon reviews about percale versus sateen weave.

The browsing history goes: $20 polyester, $28 microfiber, $45 cotton, $65 bamboo, $90 'organic cotton sateen,' $120 French flax linen, and then — with the confidence of a man who has just spent six hours becoming a self-taught textile expert — right back to the $28 microfiber. Then back to the $120 linen. Then the $28 again. Then the linen. The browsing history looks like a heart rate monitor.

I now know what 'stone-washed' means in the context of bedding. I know the difference between European flax and Chinese flax. I have whispered the words 'GSM weight' to myself while scrolling at midnight. I did not ask for this knowledge. Amazon gave it to me, and I can never give it back.

If you scrolled through my Amazon browsing history without context, you would reasonably conclude that three completely different human beings share this account. Person one is a dad buying educational toys and Elmo plushies. Person two is a finance professional browsing Bloomberg terminal accessories and books about macroeconomic policy.

Person three... There are some items in this browsing history that I will simply describe as 'personal wellness devices.' We are moving on. Immediately. Right now. The point is that Amazon's recommendation algorithm has absolutely no idea what to do with me, and I respect that.

The 'Recommended for You' section on my homepage is a fever dream. An Elmo backpack next to a DMSO cream next to 'Security Analysis by Benjamin Graham.' The algorithm is trying its best and I am giving it nothing to work with.

Let me be clear: every single one of these purchases was for my daughter. That is my story and I am sticking to it. The fact that I spent forty-five minutes building an elaborate marble run at 10 PM while she was asleep is irrelevant. I was 'testing it.' For safety.

The coding robot was supposed to teach her programming fundamentals. She pressed the forward button three times, said 'cool,' and went back to her Elmo plush. I then spent the next hour programming it to navigate an obstacle course I built out of couch cushions. For quality assurance purposes.

The stomp rocket launcher is the best purchase on this entire list and I will die on that hill. Fifteen dollars. Goes 200 feet in the air. My daughter and I have launched approximately 400 rockets off the back patio and I have sprinted to retrieve every single one like a golden retriever who just discovered his purpose in life.

There is a version of me that exists between 1 AM and 3 AM that I barely recognize. This version of me has a credit card, an Amazon account, and zero executive function. He browses with the reckless abandon of a man who has confused 'adding to cart' with 'making progress on something.'

The mushroom lamp is actually beautiful. It sits on my nightstand and cycles through soft colors and I love it. But I have absolutely no memory of buying it. I woke up to a shipping notification and thought someone had hacked my account. Nope. Just 2 AM Glen, living his best life.

The colloidal silver nasal spray and DMSO cream are what happens when you go down a health optimization rabbit hole at 1:30 AM after reading one too many biohacking threads. I cannot defend these purchases. I can only acknowledge them and move forward as a slightly wiser man.

The sister blanket, though — that was genuinely thoughtful. I saw it, thought of my sister, and ordered it immediately. The fact that it was 1:43 AM does not diminish the sentiment. If anything, it proves that late-night Amazon Glen has a bigger heart than daytime Glen. He just also buys mushroom lamps.

This is the grocery cart of a man who spends twelve hours a day analyzing the capital structure of government-sponsored enterprises and then eats Nutty Bars over the kitchen sink at 11 PM.

Let me walk you through a typical day: I wake up, drink blueberry juice (healthy), eat a string cheese (debatable), spend eight hours doing financial analysis that could move markets, eat a Caesar salad kit straight from the bag while reading FHFA reports, and then close out the evening with three Nutty Bars and a sense of quiet accomplishment.

The fig cookies are the tell. A man buying fig cookies in bulk is a man who has given up on the idea of 'meals' and has fully embraced the concept of 'items I can eat with one hand while the other hand is scrolling through court filings.' I have achieved a state of nutritional efficiency that a college student would find concerning.

In my defense, the blueberry juice is genuinely excellent. It costs five dollars a bottle and tastes like someone liquefied an entire blueberry farm. I drink it every morning and tell myself it cancels out the Nutty Bars. It does not cancel out the Nutty Bars. Nothing cancels out the Nutty Bars.