For me, there's no such thing as free shipping

Maybe I shouldn’t be in the business of knocking Amazon. Over the years, the site has saved me many frustrating retail encounters in the real world, and saved my car from unnecessary wear-and-tear navigating the parking lot at the mall. But, here goes: the last two years I’ve begun to wonder how possible it is to actually get free shipping if you shop for Christmas presents anytime after, say, Nov. 1. Sunday night I went on my annual search ‘n’ shop mission on the site and found that almost nothing I was buying could be guaranteed to arrive at the door by Dec.