Excessive Scrolling Causes Heartburn

Internet Form Induced Late Night Insanity...


Does anyone but me get chafed when, in the process of filling out that final form you always have to do in order to buy something on E-Bay or Amazon or Paypal, you get down to the part where they ask for your "Country" and instead of having "USA" or "United States of 'Merica" at the top of the list you have to poke at the scroll bar and slide down the "computerized world tour" all the way from Albania to the bottom near Zimbabwe to find the name of the place where we all live?

I find that many if not most companies--even those solidly situated here in the good old US of A--today use web forms which insist on placing our country's name at the bottom of the list rather than at the top.

So what's up with that?

Add to my petty ill "formed" aggravations the realization that in the past couple of years since we moved from Georgia to the Turbo Pup Compound here on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River I'm also forced to scroll down past Alabama and Florida and Georgia to find Tennessee on the "State" list.

Alabama and Georgia and Florida appear when you first hit that blank on the form, while Tennessee is stuck down there with Texas and the Mormons in Utah...you know?

And inevitably I manage to screw up both the country and the state at least once in my haste and have to hit the back arrow once I get to the checkout page because I don't want to send industrial electrical parts to Uganda having paid for the overnight FedEX on my Debit Card.

And now finally I have to admit the truth....because all of the above aside what really got me going on this topic this morning was that while punching in my personal information into a Web Site page selling of all things "wiper seals" for these stupid expensive valves I'm getting paid to re-build, when I got to the DOB blank on the form I had to watch 49 numbers go by...from 2010 down to 1959...before I could hit "Enter" followed by the "Tab" key.

(In a few more years it will be quicker for me if they put 1900 first and the current year last on the list I guess.)

In closing, wandering back to my initial "Country Listing in the Internet Form" complaints, on second thought I have to admit that I can sorta kinda see the rational of foreign companies or domestic companies with huge foreign market share including us (the US) at the bottom of the list, but if all you sell is parts for old Chevy Camaros and Ford Mustangs, Crotchless overalls from the "Frederics of Hooterville" Dutch Quaker Lingerie Collection, or those stupid fake fireplaces made by the Pennsylvania Amish...do you really think the Austrians or Australians are going to come clamoring to your Internet doorstep with a credit card number in hand???

Thereby causing me to have to wear out my mouse button finger scrolling around looking for the wealthiest part of North America in your list of countries???

Think about it people...

In the mean time, I have to go put a new water pump on my Camaro, then jump in the shower before donning my new overalls in time to sit in front of the bay window waiting for the UPS driver to deliver my ventless electric fireplace with a real hand made wooden cabinet.

Talk to y'all later...