I used to brag about having the shortest commute in town: downstairs for coffee, back up to my office to write. How wrong I was. My daily commute is really more like 3 million miles—without leaving the house. And so is yours.

From field to broker to port to factory to store to me, my morning java travels enough to circle the globe—and that’s just the beans. Add milk, water, coffeemaker, electricity and package and my cup of joe has gone ’round the world multiple times. My smartphone is even more traveled and my car’s 30,000 parts have enough miles to reach the moon. Fantastic distances and a cast of thousands are embedded in every trip we take and every click we make.
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​I spent the past year peeking under the hood of this have-it-now, same-day-delivery economy. I wanted to know how our lattes, pizzas and sodas move so seamlessly door to door—even as we live with soul-killing traffic, a death every 15 minutes and a trip to the ER every 13 seconds.