For a short period after I moved to Las Vegas, I thought that I had forgotten my shower curtain in California. However, I soon remembered that I never actually had a shower curtain (my apartment used to have a sliding glass door, and the team house shower curtain belongs in the team house), so I went and bought a new shower curtain.
I bought a Volens ruffled white shower curtain because it looked more luxurious and elegant than a regular printed shower curtain, and it fit my apartment’s minimalistic and simple theme pretty well. After it arrived, I hung it up using the included rings, and I had my shower curtain.
Now normally, Amazon gives you product recommendations based off what you purchase. Sometimes it will recommend the same item again in the case of refillable products, but for one-time or big purchases (like televisions), it usually won’t continue to recommend you even more TVs, as it knows you now already have one. In those situations, it may instead start recommending related products, like a TV wall mount.
For some reason, Amazon insisted on constantly giving me additional shower curtain recommendations. Now, if I had purchased a product like dog treats, it would make sense for Amazon to continue recommending dog treats to me, as my (theoretically-existing) dog (for the purposes of this example) would eventually finish consuming the treats and need more. However, people generally don’t eat or replace their shower curtains too often, so I was very confused as to why my recommendations were lined with more shower curtains.
I ended up just ignoring the recommendations, and everything was fine for two months. But recently, my shower curtain started smelling a bit unpleasant – it was actually the smell that clothes give off if they’ve been left out to air dry in a humid and bacteria-prone area, instead of being quickly dried in a machine dryer. This wasn’t a problem, though – I just unhooked my fancy shower curtain from the rings and threw it in the washing machine and dryer.
It shrunk.
For some reason, the shower curtain railing above my bathtub is unusually high, and on top of that, my tub is one of those hybrid soaking tubs that are ergonomically designed in an oval (which requires even more leftover curtain at the bottom to be able to stretch inward and fit inside the tub). My royal shower curtain was already only just barely making it in, but with it just barely shrinking in the wash (because this was made out of polyester and not vinyl), it was hanging above the tub.
This is the moment I discovered that Amazon knew what was going to happen months before it happened, and I began questioning the meaning of life. Amazon somehow knew that, because I had only purchased a polyester fabric shower curtain and no vinyl shower curtain liner to go with it, it should keep recommending shower curtains because it predicted that (1) I needed something vinyl to go inside the tub, (2) I would wash this shower curtain, it would shrink, and I would need to buy a new one, or (3) both.
I picked out a PEVA shower curtain liner and placed my order. The shower curtain recommendations instantly disappeared.
Now Amazon is recommending different kinds of body wash, soap, and toothbrushes to me.
I haven’t replaced my toothbrush in 4 months.
I’m just going to pretend like Amazon doesn’t actually know that, and they just made a lucky guess.
Amazon knows my life better than I do
For a short period after I moved to Las Vegas, I thought that I had forgotten my shower curtain in California. However, I soon remembered that I never actually had a shower curtain (my apartment used to have a sliding glass door, and the team house shower curtain belongs in the team house), so I went and bought a new shower curtain.
I bought a Volens ruffled white shower curtain because it looked more luxurious and elegant than a regular printed shower curtain, and it fit my apartment’s minimalistic and simple theme pretty well. After it arrived, I hung it up using the included rings, and I had my shower curtain.
Now normally, Amazon gives you product recommendations based off what you purchase. Sometimes it will recommend the same item again in the case of refillable products, but for one-time or big purchases (like televisions), it usually won’t continue to recommend you even more TVs, as it knows you now already have one. In those situations, it may instead start recommending related products, like a TV wall mount.
For some reason, Amazon insisted on constantly giving me additional shower curtain recommendations. Now, if I had purchased a product like dog treats, it would make sense for Amazon to continue recommending dog treats to me, as my (theoretically-existing) dog (for the purposes of this example) would eventually finish consuming the treats and need more. However, people generally don’t eat or replace their shower curtains too often, so I was very confused as to why my recommendations were lined with more shower curtains.
I ended up just ignoring the recommendations, and everything was fine for two months. But recently, my shower curtain started smelling a bit unpleasant – it was actually the smell that clothes give off if they’ve been left out to air dry in a humid and bacteria-prone area, instead of being quickly dried in a machine dryer. This wasn’t a problem, though – I just unhooked my fancy shower curtain from the rings and threw it in the washing machine and dryer.
It shrunk.
For some reason, the shower curtain railing above my bathtub is unusually high, and on top of that, my tub is one of those hybrid soaking tubs that are ergonomically designed in an oval (which requires even more leftover curtain at the bottom to be able to stretch inward and fit inside the tub). My royal shower curtain was already only just barely making it in, but with it just barely shrinking in the wash (because this was made out of polyester and not vinyl), it was hanging above the tub.
This is the moment I discovered that Amazon knew what was going to happen months before it happened, and I began questioning the meaning of life. Amazon somehow knew that, because I had only purchased a polyester fabric shower curtain and no vinyl shower curtain liner to go with it, it should keep recommending shower curtains because it predicted that (1) I needed something vinyl to go inside the tub, (2) I would wash this shower curtain, it would shrink, and I would need to buy a new one, or (3) both.
I picked out a PEVA shower curtain liner and placed my order. The shower curtain recommendations instantly disappeared.
Now Amazon is recommending different kinds of body wash, soap, and toothbrushes to me.
I haven’t replaced my toothbrush in 4 months.
I’m just going to pretend like Amazon doesn’t actually know that, and they just made a lucky guess.