Top 10 Most Useless Items of Crapola
Once upon a time, things were made to serve a purpose. Consider the light bulb, the compass, and the cardiac pacemaker. No doubt necessity was once the mother of invention.
Fast forward to the present. What's happened? It seems that everywhere I go, I'm bombarded with completely useless and unnecessary stuff. Yesterday, someone tried to sell me a 14-inch pencil--the "Jumbo Jotter." I'll admit I was tempted, and I imagined myself sauntering into Monday's 3:00 meeting, only to whip out my enormous pencil and start taking notes like it was just another day at the office. My colleagues would laugh, we'd all have a good chuckle, but then some persnickety associate would point out the obvious: I had wasted $9.95 and a tree in Paraguay for a D-list joke.
The problem with useless products is threefold. First, they squander natural resources (energy, raw materials, mineral deposits and infomercial star Anthony Sullivan's precious time). Secondly, they clog up landfills and, thirdly, they throw us into a Samsara-like cycle of never ending consumption.
Take for example, the Toastmaster Electric Can Opener - Model TCO2 (white). Yes, of course this gadget could be a godsend for the arthritic and handicapped. For the rest of us, however, it's just another gateway to misery.
1. Lift blade assembly.
2. Place can against positioning bar guide and metal wheel.
3. Press button until can opening process is complete.
We press the button and eat our spam with little worry. Then the tragedy sets in. A few weeks go by and a rubber tire forms around our recently slim midsection. A double chin appears. Is that arm flab? Manual can opening burns calories. The lack of physical activity has atrophied our muscles.
Hence useless gadget number two: the Sauna Belt (note this product was recently recalled for safety reasons). This girdle of a device claims to heat the belly, increasing body temperature, so to literally melt away excess pounds. As it happens, the only thing the Sauna Belt is really good for is repelling members of the opposite sex and scorching its clientele. Burned and fat, what are we to do? Sharper Image's personal air conditioner provides comfort in times of distress. Just place the battery operated metal collar around your neck and you'll enjoy the blissful blow of cool air and water vapor on your face.
My point is that it never ends. As we're buying up all of this "stuff," we're wasting money, polluting the earth and adding another piece of junk to our already overcrowded lives. To offset the havoc we purchase yet another useless product and on and on it goes.
Yes, it's a cruel cruel world out there. And if for a moment a gigantic pencil, fuzzy toilet seat cover or fat burning belt will make it seem all the more bearable, then purchase away. But at least try to buy used.
Behold the gallery . . .
Top Ten Most Useless and Unnecessary Pieces of Crap
The Auto-Adjusting Wrench
Put the monkey wrench to shame. No need to sweat and waste your energy spinning the thumbwheel manually. Instead, just press "power" and the Auto-Adjusting Wrench will mechanically close in on that nut like a python closing in on its prey. Of course, once adjusted you'll have to turn the wrench yourself, but at least you got the hard part out of the way.
The Banana Holder
Not to be confused with the "Banana Hammock." Seriously though, what happens when you are down to one banana? How does that Banana stay safe?
Oh, of course! Silly me! Just put it in a Plastic Banana Guard.
The Plastic Banana Guard
The Battery-Powered Spinning Bottle
Jeez, kids today! They have it so easy. Back in my day (insert rambling aged voice here) we actually had to rotate the bottle. Can you imagine? Whirling it by hand to facilitate a painful make-out session or seven minutes in heaven. What torture. We really were living in the dark ages.
The Fuzzy Toilet Seat Cover
Aside from serving absolutely no purpose whatsoever, the furry toilet seat is gross. I mean, why on earth would I want a carpet on my toilet? I don't want to get into graphic detail here, but stray tagnuts and winnets . . . before you know it you've got a dingleberry garden.
The Paper Weight
If by divine intervention a gust of wind blazeth through your windowless cubicle, be sure to protect thy papers with a 4 ounce paperweight.
The Mechanized Egg Cracker
The line of crap destined to fill up your kitchen is seemingly endless. Exhibit A: the egg cracker, a plastic device with which you . . . crack an egg. God forbid we need to knock on the side of a bowl. How, one wonders, has humanity ever survived without a mechanized egg cracker?
The Baby Wipes Warmer
The baby industry capitalizes on the deepest fears of new and nervous parents. Certainly your baby will be uncomfortable, unhappy and will hate you for life if you do not wipe its bum with a warm wipey. This particular model ensures that it won't dehydrate the wipes, "as leading wipe warmers tend to do." You know what else won't dry out the wipes? Not using a wipe warmer.
The Melon Wedger
Need I point out that most kitchens have a knife?
The Leaf Blower
What good is a rake when you can happily puff leaves into your neighbor's yard with a gas powered leaf blower? Yeah, blowers hemorrhage fossil fuel, but then again nothing's more satisfying than chasing down that last recalcitrant leaf and blasting it into oblivion.
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useless item: chiquita products
i hope that banana is not Chiquita brand. i live in a "company town" of Diablo Chiquita and i would not buy or even EAT a Chiquita product if i were starving..
una+
Non-organic bananas are so heavily sprayed that apparently their peels will kill your worms if you try to compost them in your worm bin. That's pretty gross. I've also heard that the spraying causes workers at banana plantations to go sterile (do you know this to be true, una/ammaoonagh?).
Of course, the problem is that all banana plants are clones, so there's no genetic diversity, and very little resistance to disease and pests. At least, that's the biological part of the problem.
I used to take comfort in eating organic bananas, until I heard a banana expert on the radio explain that organic bananas need to be grown at high altitudes, and there is only enough land of this kind to meet a very small portion of overall banana demand (and I don't even want to think about it competing for land with habitat... or the added strain of global warming... goodness!). I still eat them, but I take less comfort in it.
HuffPost's Pick
I agree with you on everything except the auto-adjusting wrench. The wrench has been a lifesaver for me. I had a couple of accidents that have made it nearly impossible for me to work an adjustable wrench with one hand; working the little wheel with the thumb on my wrench hand is just not possible anymore.
Grab an auto adjuster and I am back to repairing the stuff around my house and building stuff. I love it.
Consumerism Exposed: LINK: http://www
Hey, don't blame the people who make this stuff. Blame the people who buy it. A product is only crapola if it doesn't work or you don't use it. Which brings me to my Crapola Hall of Fame:
The bread machine
The shaving lather warmer
The electric knife
Anything from Swarovski
The mini vacuum
George W. Bush
Consumerism Exposed: LINK BELOW
What about a diamond ring for an engagement?
Could not agree more.
I was laughing with you up until the leaf blower - that thing is a huge labor saver, not everyone's back/health is up to a full day of raking and bagging.
Yep, besides some regardless of health will never pick up a rake. Lazy people will always be around.
Also:
Banana hammock or hanger - in my experience it keeps them fresh longer. What to do with the last banana? Eat it, put it in your kid's lunch bag or feed it to birds and/or other outdoor critters. Or freeze it - a friend does this for healthy frozen treats.
Paperweight - if you have a fan on in your office - which I do sometimes - they aren't useless, they're essential for keeping papers where they're supposed to be
Totally agree on furry toilet seat. Ewww...yec
That's what teens who need money are for, or if you can't really afford to hire a teen (but then again, you DID buy a leaf blower!), then trade jobs with a neighbor who presumably CAN rake your lawn. .. or driveway, or whatever else may need raking. (BTW, lawns themselves are fufu crapola.)
We'll use our leaf blowers as we wish. We don't you for anything. FO.
Totally. I have about 1/3 acre of maples on my property, all fully-grown and generating a huge carpet of leaves every fall. Our first year, my wife and I raked ... and raked ... and raked. The next year, I bought a blower. 210 MPH! That puppy will move 2-inch diameter chunks of tree branch. Even with the blower, it's about 2 full days of work to move all those leaves off the lawn. (I live on the edge of a ridge, so I just blow them off the bluff. Otherwise, I'd have to rent a drop box to get rid of them.) But at least it's just one of us doing the work. And my back doesn't need medical attention afterward.
Thanks.
mp
One of the best fertilizers available for your maple trees: Maple leaves.
I don't disagree about the paperweight, but I feel it's the most useful on your list. I'd replace it with television
much of the accoutrement of modern western culture is crapola. Would you rather be dead, or alive but with no four wheel drive? Would you rather be dead, or alive but with no plasma screen TV? The sheer variety of products on supermarket shelves -- 167 varieties of hairspray, 689 flavours of tea, hundreds of brands of tolothpaste, etc etc But, stopping the juggernaut in its tracks is not an easy thing to do, as this story illustrates:
This was a lot of fun! Havent laughed so much at a Huffington blog in awhile.
Also the solar-powered flashlight. What a great invention.
Now leaf blowers are handy. You can turn your BBQ into an air forced forge. Blow powder snow off the drive way, even dry the dog off!! But the number one useless item of crapola you missed was G.W. Bush
LMAO - agreed
Apparently you haven't seen a Sears catalog from the 1950s. There have always been plenty of bad gadgets to go around.
This is spot on!
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