Since the pandemic began, we’ve spotted flocks of delivery vehicles in our neighborhood. Whether it’s the bright white and blue FedEx vans, the darker blue Amazon vans, the white USPS vans or the brown UPS vans, they traverse our streets constantly, even on Sunday. All of them bring my neighbors (and me) an increasing variety of goods.

Never has accumulation been so easy! Before the advance of Internet shopping, you had to drive your vehicle to each store to load it up and bring stuff home. That required some work. And if you lived in a walkable city, as I once did, the amount of things you bought was limited by how much you could carry on the train or bus home, or on your walk home. You might see many things you liked, but you were limited by your arm strength.

These days we sit in a comfy chair at home and click on our phones (or tablets or laptops or desktops), and the burden of lifting what we buy is on the delivery people. This makes it so much harder to keep our homes uncluttered when the things that appeal to us are just a click away, and the only limit is our credit limit.

For now, anyways. Reports are everywhere that our supply chains are being greatly affected by the pandemic, by vaccine mandates and by the inability of companies to find workers. As a result, we’re told to expect delays and shortages of consumer goods for the foreseeable future, including the 2021 Christmas season.

That could certainly limit the amount of clutter we accumulate in the coming months.