I needed printer ink. So I fished out the business card I had been given by a client ions ago and rang them to place an order. They are one of those businesses who take used cartridges and refill them with top quality ink at a fraction of the price of a new one and gave me the spiel about how cartridge companies are going out of business (really not sure how, it's the most expensive liquid known to man) and most of the new Chinese cartridges can't be refilled and just end up in landfill so we need to hang on to our old ones and together we'll save the planet blah blah blah. That's ok, I like to feel like I'm doing the right thing by the planet while I sit here on my laptop in my centrally heated house with my daughter watching a DVD on a plasma TV whilst creating one massive mother of a carbon footprint. Then the lady on the phone asked for my address. No problem, I reel it off. 'We pay the postage and you'll have them tomorrow' she says and I'm thinking "what? What business covers postage costs? That's great, I won't complain, $10 is better in my pocket that theirs"

Then I say 'hang on, let me grab my purse' thinking that I'll need to hand over a credit card number but (here's the clincher) she says 'No, it's ok, we send you an invoice and you have a few payment options and you can just choose which ever suits you'

WTF?

Did I just hear correctly? You're going to send me the full set of printer cartridges I want, YOU'RE going to pay for it to get to me AND you're happy for me to pay for them how I like AFTER I get them with no more surety than my postal address?

I'm guessing I must have just slipped into some kind of time travel portal when I walked through my kitchen doorway cos this so does not sound like something that could happen in 2011.