Wish Lists

When I found The Bakers Manual, and started leafing through it, I thought "Wow, I'd like to own this." But over the years I've learned to curb my enthusiasms for books, especially ones related to baking, as such leads to quick expenditures of a fair amount of money on a book that isn't always satisfying, no matter how delightful and Man, this is totally great! it might seem at first glance. So I did what I tend to do: looked on Amazon, saw the price (hmm...not bad!), and, since, who knows, I might get it, I used their Wish List feature to record the details...in case I come into money or something. Right now I have six books there: five have to do with baking, and one has to do with improving organizational communication. Its a guilty secret of mine. The organizational communication thing, that is.

But I thought briefly about the Wish List. I've seen on many other sites references to that kind of thing -- "If you like this site, show a little love via Paypal/Amazon/whatever". I know that a lot of people seem to like the idea of earning money with their blog, so I suppose this is a fair thing for them to do. It gets a little out of hand on some sites, of course, with AdWords and what not out the wazoo. But if someone wants to say 'Hey, want to buy something for me?' -- well, okay. I'd likely never do it, because what would I do with the grand total of a buck forty-eight cents, two loonies, and a bottlecap?

But there are sites that do it where I really wonder what the deal is. One's a site done by a woman who's a psychiatrist, formerly of Seattle, now (I think) of New York. She's a bright, interesting person, and she has a lot of intriguing observations about things ranging from the pharmaceutical treatments of various diseases to how she really likes to dance. But one of the things she does is have one of these wish lists. I don't ever actually recall seeing it on the site, but she occasionally mentions 'oh, this person sent me this book (or whatever) from my Amazon wish list, thanks a lot'. I asked her how they did that if she doesn't publicize her actual name, and she told me that Amazon makes that subterfuge possible -- you tell them you want to buy something from Doctor Z's wishlist, then you pay for it and they ship it to her with a note about who paid for it.

Thats a cool trick if you can do it, but after a while, I had to stop reading the blog, because every time I'd hit one of these observations -- and they didn't happen all that often -- it would grate on me, jar me, like biting on tinfoil. I'd think 'This woman is a doctor, which, last time I looked, equates to Well Paid -- not rich, but certainly better off than most. Where does she get off....' And so finally I had to stop, because I didn't like being that judgemental. I'm not normally judgemental -- or at least, not any more than the average person.

So here's my question: would the ordinary person think that someone like that, with those presumed financial resources, really should buy their own books and tchotckes and whatnot? Or am I being too thin skinned here?