Destiny and Me in the Amazon

Okay, okay, that's Amazon.com, not the Amazon. Actually, it's Half, not Amazon at all. But this way just sounded so much cooler :-P If my site won't get clicks for "A Day in the Life..." than maybe it will get them for "Drama and Danger in the Brazilian Jungle." But I digress.

Last week, I ordered two books for college. At least, I thought I did. I was quite pleased because one turned out to be very inexpensive and for the other, I found a real bargain -- a "like new" for the price of an "acceptable." Yes, I'm easy to thrill.

A few days later, I suddenly realized I still hadn't gotten any confirmation by email. I'd forgotten to check for the initial confirmation from the website, so I was waiting patiently for the individual sellers to let me know they'd shipped my books... Anyway, there was no record of my purchase anywhere online. Apparently, I hadn't bought any books at all.

Hang in there, this isn't a rant.

So I went back to the book's page, and of course the "metziah" wasn't there anymore. I was disappointed, but of course I knew that it was "min hashamayim"...

It wasn't until about three days later that I realized what happened.

In the time between my first would-be order and the second, I found out that I really didn't need one of the books (the one that was always cheap). However, the amount I was supposed to spend had already been determined a little over a month ago, on Rosh Hashana. So, HaShem saved me the trouble of trying to store, resell, package, and mail an extra book later on by arranging for me to spend more on the other book instead! Yes, the cost difference balanced out just about exactly.

How cool is that?