It’s that jolly time of year: Time to exchange all the holiday gifts that you got but didn’t want. If you saw the article in Monday’s Washington Post, you’ll know that Amazon.com has patented software that will alert you when someone is sending you a gift through Amazon and let you to decide even before the object is put in a shipping box whether you’d like to receive it, exchange it for something else, or just have Amazon put a credit in your account to use at your own convenience. Your gift-giver --called “Aunt Mildred” in the newspaper article-- will never know that you didn’t receive the fill-in-the-blank that she wanted you to have, and since you’ve been notified as to what that thing was, you'll be able to thank her effusively, as if you had actually unwrapped and oohed-and-ahhed over the original present. Unless she arrives for tea one afternoon and asks you point-blank, “Why aren’t you using the embroidered tea-cozy I sent you to keep the teapot warm?” she’ll never know you traded in that tea-cozy for downloads of your favorite rap artists.
