When I was a kid, I read magazines such as National Lampoon, Mad, Hot Rod, Omni, and Popular Mechanics. On the back of some of them, I’d find ads for mail-order companies from which I could order product catalogs for things I dreamed of one day being fortunate enough to buy. When I became a teenager, I graduated to reading Force Mental, UnSound, Fangoria, and began exploring alternative music and how to make horror films. As a young adult, I brought in Film Threat and an old favorite called the JLF Catalog that dealt with “Poisonous Non-Consumables.” I’m sharing this reminiscing about the old days when there was a delta between the initial discovery of something and the arrival of catalogs or other materials, educating me about the new-to-me subject matter. Another delta occurred after I put in my order while I sometimes waited weeks before I’d take delivery of that special something.

That age is over, as we are now in the era of instant gratification, where everything is accessible right away, which brings me to the reason for this blog post today. I’m at a coffee shop watching a map that shows me where my UPS driver is with a 32-pound box filled with dry ice and frozen Mangalitsa pork I ordered on Friday. This isn’t the first time I’ve had fresh food shipped in from other places; I’ve had pizza from Buffalo, New York, sent to us, frozen walleye and perch from northern Canada, and Wagyu beef from Idaho. Ordering perishables from companies I only discovered minutes before offering them a credit card number, sometimes receiving shipping confirmation on the same day I placed my order, is such a magnitude of amazing that I have to slow down and recognize it is part of my reality. Of course, if you were born after 1995, this is your normal, which I suppose puts me in a similar situation to those people who would fondly recollect the days before the cars, planes, TV, and smartphones.

Today’s cache is a type of pig that is otherwise not available in the state of Arizona. While there was a local farmer we were able to buy Mangalitsa from, their land has been sold to developers who are building homes, so that is that. But isn’t a pig just a pig? Nope. Mangalitsa is a serious breed apart from other pigs, with red meat instead of pink and a type of fat that claims to be as healthy as olive oil. When I come to think about the time from my early life to now, I suppose the biggest change is how compressed the entire process is. Then again, this level of indulgence where I can buy fresh products in an environment in which shipping is so efficient and relatively inexpensive was never available before, except maybe for the ridiculously super-wealthy who could privately fly goods in.