Small World

Over the years I have had many great Natural Scratch customers, and some live far away.  Recently a nice professional woman, initials L.L., in Manley, a seaside resort community near Sydney, Australia, sent an e-mail expressing interest in a double-wide cedar scratching plank.

My e-mail reply went to her at about 8:30 a.m. US central standard time which was nearly midnight in her time zone on the east coast of Australia.   She was still up and replied that she wanted the plank and requested I send a PayPal invoice, which I did.  Not long after her payment arrived.

I mentioned that our daughter Ann had been a study-abroad college student in Perth, Australia, and she said her daughter Alexandra was a post-doc fellowship student in London.  

The next day, Thursday, August 12, I sent the plank "First-Class Mail International Parcel."  Nine days later, L.L. e-mailed to let me know the package had arrived at her residence.

Wow.

I found a Web site* that provides "as the crow flies" distances, and it indicates Sydney is 9,240 miles from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA (I'm in Brookfield, a suburb). 

L.L.'s cat, Bonnie, likes the NS plank and the catnip that accompanied it.  (Always great news.)

New South Wales cat Bonnie is clawing a white cedar plank from a tree that grew in Northern Wisconsin, USA and enjoying catnip that was found growing wild in Southeastern Wisconsin.

In addition, L.L. and I were communicating around the world via e-mail in seconds at no more cost than each of us pays for Web access.

Certainly modernity and technology have downsides but the upsides are astonishing.

*http://www.infoplease.com/atlas/calculate-distance.html#axzz0xQdVxEhM