Rarely do I surf the web as an Internet shopper myself. But last night I decided I would like to send a gift to an aunt and uncle that my family recently had the pleasure of visiting. I went to one of the major search engines and searched using the words “ordering flowers online” or something to that effect. As I went through each of the top sites that appeared, I was dismayed to find so many obstacles to making a simple online transaction!
   1. rarely do I……inverted order / structure
   2. something to that effect: something like that
   3. obstacle: an object that makes it difficult for you to go where you want to go ex: To succeed, you must learn to overcome obstacles.
   4. dismay: make somebody feel sad, afraid, worried ex: I was homesick and dismayed by the quiet of the country.
   5. transaction: a piece of business, for example an act of buying or selling something ex: The transaction closed on Jan. 2
   The first site had a good product which I thought about ordering, but when I clicked on the “order this item” graphic, it brought me to a page with empty fields to fill out, where I was supposed to put in THEIR product number and price!
   1. graphic: drawing and picture that are composed using simple lines and sometimes strong colors图标
   2. …..where I was supposed to….
Ex: It’s 3:00 now, and they were supposed to be here an hour ago!
   The next site charged extremely high (in my opinion) shipping charges. It doesn’t seem quite right that a $25 bonsai tree(盆景树) should have a $10 shipping charge to me. The next site had no secure order form. (Although when I wrote to them expressing my disappointment that they had no secure order form, they assured me that they did indeed have one and had had it for years --- still, it wasn’t showing secure for me!)
   1. charge: ask to pay for ex: The hospitals charge the patients for every aspirin
   2. assure: tell sb that sth is definitely true ex:I can assure you that this is not the case.
   One site had a great order form and shopping cart. I added my chosen product to the shopping cart and it seemed to work fine, but then I couldn’t find any way to GO TO the shopping cart to place my order! I knew it had to be there somewhere. Upon further inspection, I found a tiny link among the list of links in the left border column that said “go to shopping cart.” Now I’m an experienced Internet user, I can’t even imagine what it must be like for total beginners who want to buy things online. For whatever reason, probably out of spite because I couldn’t find the “go to shopping cart link,” I moved on.
   1. upon further inspection: as I search for more
   2. out of spite: She did it out of spite.她那么做是出于恶意。
   I'm sure he only said it out of spite.我相信他只是为了泄愤才那么说的。
   So, I did another search on Hot Bot and this time noticed a banner ad, the kind that pops up on your computer when you log into a com website, for the FTD (Florists’ Telegraph Delivery) site. I rarely click on banner ads, but this seemed to be what I was looking for, so I clicked through. What a difference! The FTD site was well organized, easy to browse through, secure, and had reasonable shipping charges. My question is why do we still have to get to a “big dog” to get that kind of service?
   1. banner ad: 通栏广告
   2. pop up: If someone or something pops up, they appear in a place or situation unexpectedly.
   3. log into:登录
   4. FTD：花卉快速投递公司
   5. browse through: 浏览
   By the way, at around 1:30 AM last night, I ended up ordering a nice little flowering plant from the FTD site, securely and quickly with only a $5 and some cents shipping charge (which would have been the same no matter how much I ordered, I believe), which will be promptly delivered to my aunt and uncle today sometime.
   1. which would have been…..
   2. promptly: immediately, at once ex: Please do your homework promptly.