And so we come, once again, to that very special time of year — the time when we present our annual Holiday Gift Guide, in direct defiance of an order by Attorney General John Ashcroft.
Why do we do it? Why do we go to the trouble of putting out the Holiday Gift Guide year after year, despite all the effort, the expense, the scheduling hassles, the lawsuits, the criminal prosecutions, the fatalities, the mobs of angry consumers chasing us down the street with tire irons?
We're going to answer that question by telling you a little story that we first heard from our mother many years ago, when we were small, hairless children. The story is called:
"A Holiday Miracle"
Once upon a time, not so long ago, there was a little boy named Bobby. Or maybe Billy. Whatever his name was, his family was very poor.
One day, as the holiday season was approaching, the little boy's father said to him, "Bobby, or Billy, as you know we are very poor, and that means we can't have any presents this holiday season. But getting presents is not the important thing. The important thing is thinking about the true meaning of the holiday season."
"What is the true meaning of the holiday season, father?" asked the little boy.
"Season's Greetings," said the Father.
"Season's Greetings?" said the little boy. "What does that mean?"
"I don't know," said the father. "But it's inoffensive. Anyway, the point is, no presents, OK?"
"OK," said the little boy, for he was a good boy.
As the holidays grew closer, the little boy tried to think about the true meaning of Season's Greetings, instead of thinking about presents. But it was hard, and he was sad. And then, one night, when he was lying in bed, shivering from the cold because his family was too poor to own a house and his bed was outdoors, he saw a light appear in the sky. At first it was dim, but then it grew brighter and brighter, until it was the brightest light in the whole sky.
"It's a special star!" thought the little boy. "Maybe it's a magic star! Maybe if I make a wish, my wish will be granted!"
And so the little boy wished that his family could have presents for the holiday season.
But then he heard the sound of a motor, and he realized that the light was not a star: It was a police helicopter with a searchlight. And the little boy was very, very sad.
But then it turned out that this was not an ordinary police helicopter: This was a "magic" police helicopter, and it had heard the little boy's wish. And so, using a cable, it lowered a crate containing $800 million in cash.
And the little boy's family had the very best holiday season ever, until the next year, when the magic police helicopter gave the little boy the power to fly and talk to animals, including fish.
THE END
And THAT is why we put out the Holiday Gift Guide.
This year, as always, we have gathered together a collection of very special gift items — items that you probably will not see in stores. No, these are special items, unique items, items that will leave a lasting impression on the person you give them to, similar to the impression that Godzilla made on Tokyo.
As you look through these items, please bear in mind that all of them are real. We did not make them up.
We have also personally subjected all of these items to a rigorous "hands-on" quality-control test, wherein we put our hands on them, and then quickly pull our hands off, to guard against gift-transmitted diseases. That is why we are able to make the following:
HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE QUALITY ASSURANCE WARRANTY
If you purchase any of these items, and you are for any reason not satisfied with it, simply put it into its original packaging, seal it up, and leave it in a dumpster. We will take it from there.
Food Suit
$49.95 plus shipping and handling from Food Suit, Internet: www.foodsuit.com
— Suggested by Loree Peery of San Diego, Calif.
Do you have a sports fan on your holiday gift list? We're talking about a "real" sports fan — the kind of fan who, when he gets to his seat at the game, wants to remain there and not miss anything. Wouldn't it be wonderful if that person had a suit that could enable him to perform all of the key functions of a sports fan — eat, drink, dispose of garbage, even go to the bathroom! — without leaving his seat?
We don't think so, either. But that has not stopped the inventors of this amazing product, the Food Suit. It's made from a space-age material, and if that doesn't work out, cotton, and it's packed with useful features to enhance the experience of the sports fan who does not want, or has become unable, to move, including:
—Separate pockets for hot and cold foods
—A condiments dispenser
—A garbage-receptacle pocket
—A flask pocket
—Dual "suck tubes" connecting the wearer's mouth to a beer bladder and a soda bladder
—A catheter, connected via a tube to a waste reservoir.
The Food Suit is not just practical. It's also, as you can imagine, a real visual treat: Few sights are more attractive than a man who is visibly bulging with food, drink, garbage and bodily wastes. It would not surprise us to learn that Mr. Ralph Lauren has dozens of Food Suits in his personal closet.
Bird Diapers
$24.99 for Flight Pack from Avian Fashions, 44 Mine Road, Suite 2-347, Stafford, VA 22554, phone: 888 412-POOP (7667), Internet: www.birddiaper.com
— Suggested by Jodi Alexander of Fredericksburg, Va.,
and Buck Yocum of Terlingua, Texas.
Is there somebody on your holiday gift list who has a pet bird? And is that bird constantly making bird droppings all over the place? If so, we have the ideal gift for that person: a cat.
Ha! Ha! But seriously, you need to give that person a batch of FlightSuits brand bird diapers. Yes: bird diapers. We didn't believe it ourselves at first, but it appears to be absolutely true. This product comes from the folks at Avian Fashions ("Dare to think outside the cage!") whose phone number is 818-412-POOP.
FlightSuits are little fabric deals with fabric fasteners that you attach to your bird. They come in a variety of colors and sizes, including a new model designed to fit ducks. The FlightSuit features a patented "V"-pouch design that has many scientific benefits in regards to the handling of the bird's poop. This means that you no longer have to leave your bird at home when you go to the mall, parties, business meetings, weddings, funerals, etc. The FlightQuarters Web site www.birddiaper.com/index.html has technical details, as well as many moving testimonials testifying to the happiness that this product has brought into their lives.
We here at the Holiday Gift Guide can honestly state that, in all our years of evaluating quality merchandise, we have never encountered a bird diaper of this stature.
Nap-Strap Airline Passenger Head-Restraint Device
$19.95 plus shipping and handling from Practical Things, LLC., P.O. Box 6777, San Pedro, CA 90734, phone: 310-874-8346, Internet: www.practicalthings.com
— Suggested by Catherine Conner of Hamburg, Germany.
Here's the ideal gift item for anybody who flies on commercial airplanes and is basically immune from embarrassment. This is a restraining device that wraps around your head and attaches to your seat, so that you can fall asleep without having your head flop over, leaving you drooling into the lap of the businessperson seated next to you. What do you care if you look like an idiot? Let the other passengers laugh at you and put leftover airline food in your hair! You're getting your rest!
This is also a great item for people taking long car trips. Although we do not recommend it for the driver, unless the road is really straight.
Soft Claws Colored Nail Caps for Cats
$17.99 plus shipping and handling from Doctors Foster & Smith, 2253 Air Park Road, P.O. Box 100, Rhinelander, WI 54501-0100, phone: 800-381-7179, Internet: www.drsfostersmith.com
— Suggested by LaDonna Jones of Overland Park, Kan.
Cats make ideal pets, except that they hate the entire human race. At least we assume that's why they periodically sink their claws deep into our arms, legs and leather furniture.
So if your holiday list includes cat owners — you can identify them by the scars — these nail caps will make the perfect gift. These are little plastic deals that come in a variety of unnatural colors; you simply fill them with the supplied adhesive, slip them over your cat's claws, and there you are! Bleeding profusely! Because we seriously doubt that you're going to get these things on a regulation cat without the help of a tranquilizer gun.
Octodog Frankfurter Converter
$16.95 plus shipping and handling from Octodog Inc., 30672 Munger, Livonia, MI 48154, fax: 734-943-6038, Internet: www.octodog.net
— Suggested by Caya Jappinen of Issaquah, Wash.
The frankfurter, a k a hot dog, has long been an American dietary staple — a meal that is easy to prepare, and, at the same time, rich in chemicals.
The problem is that, after a while, the "plain old" hot dog can become boring. Until now, that is! Because now there is an amazing product, developed by leading frankfurter scientists, called the Octodog brand frankfurter converter. This is a cute device that converts a normal hot dog into a hot dog that looks sort of like an octopus, or some kind of mutant meat squid. Talk about fun! And it's simple to do: You simply place the Octodog device on the hot dog and slide it down via a process that is both easy and vaguely obscene.
This is a terrific gift idea for anybody on your list who yearns to turn processed pork or beef cylinders into marine-life-shaped cuisine. It is our understanding that top professional chefs such as Emeril order these babies by the gross. It is also our understanding that Meat Squid would be a good name for a rock band.
Caffeinated Soap
$6.99 plus shipping and handling from ThinkGeek Inc., 10801 Main, Suite 700, Fairfax, VA 22030, phone: 888-GEEKSTUFF, phone: 433-5788, Internet: www.thinkgeek.com
— Suggested by Karen Durkin of Pottsville, Pa.
We've all exclaimed the following exclamation a million times: "I wish there was some way I could absorb caffeine directly into my body while showering!"
Well, now there "is" a way, in the form of Shower Shock brand caffeinated soap. Each four-ounce bar of Shower Shock contains enough caffeine to provide the consumer with 200 milligrams of caffeine per shower, for 12 showers. The manufacturer states that this caffeine "is absorbed through the skin."
This breakthrough concept will make a fine gift for those people on your holiday list who do not have time to drink coffee manually, or simply dislike it. When these people need a quick "pick-me-up" at work or school, all they have to do is remove their clothing, pour some water on themselves, whip out their bar of Shower Shock and lather up. Then they're back to work, feeling refreshed and alert. This will be helpful when they talk to the police.
Hair-Cutting Umbrella
$7.98 plus shipping and handling from Harriet Carter, 425 Stump Road, North Wales, PA 19454, phone: 800-377-7878, Internet: www.harrietcarter.com
—Suggested by Emily Phares of Franktown, Colo.
If you are like many people, you are constantly on the lookout for a gift idea that not only is practical but also makes the wearer's head looking like a human cheese ball on an hors d'oeuvres platter.
Well, look no farther than this amazing hair-cutting umbrella. It is designed to be worn during home haircuts, to prevent the hair from falling on the home-haircut victim. But we here at the Gift Guide think this item would look good anywhere, as well as providing many practical benefits. For example, have you ever been at the movies, and you grab a handful of popcorn, but when you put it in your mouth, some of the popcorn falls out? Sure you have. And usually, to retrieve that popcorn, you have to root around between your thighs. Well, if you were wearing this haircutting umbrella, that popcorn would be easily accessible, right around the base of your neck, mingling with flakes of your dandruff!
There are countless other uses for this fine product. We can't even count them, that's how many there are.
Presidential Action Figures
$29.95 plus shipping and handling from Lifestyle Fascination Inc., 110 Lehigh Ave., Lakewood, NJ 08701, phone: 800-669-0987, Internet: www.shoplifestyle.com
—Suggested by James V. Dolson of Springfield, Va.
As Americans, we respect, honor and revere our presidents. But, for security reasons, we cannot take them home and play with them.
Until now, that is. Because now you, or some fortunate individual on your holiday gift list, can own a talking action figure of current President George W. Bush, or former President Bill "Bill" Clinton, or former President George "Herbert Walker" Bush.
These figures are crafted with superb skill to look exactly like small, severely mutated versions of the people they theoretically represent. And they talk! Thanks to the miracle of electronics, when you push a little button, these action figures randomly emit recordings of actual statements made by the original humans. For example, the George W. Bush doll says, among other things: "You're working hard to put food on your family." The Bill Clinton doll says, among other things: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky."
The same company also makes talking action figures of Donald Rumsfeld, Dennis Miller and Ann Coulter. (Really.) As of this writing, there is no Monica Lewinsky action figure, so we will refrain from speculating on what her "action" would be.
Bubble Buddy Bacon-Flavored Dog Bubbles
$12 plus shipping and handling from The Paragon, P.O. Box 996, 89 Tom Harvey Road Westerly, RI 02891-0996, phone: 800-657-3934, Internet: www.paragongifts.com
— Suggested by Andrea Higgins of Mount Pocono, Pa.
We all love dogs, and for a good reason: They are morons.
We mean that in a good way. We mean that dogs are extremely enthusiastic, always ready to play and fetch sticks and jump out of vehicles going 75 miles per hour.
Dogs also love to chase, and try to bite, soap bubbles. It's an instinct they acquired millions of years ago, when their wolf ancestors had to protect their young from wily predators such as the saber-toothed tiger, which would try, usually successfully, to distract the wolves by blowing bubbles.
That is the biological basis for this holiday gift concept for the dog on your list. It consists of a bubble dispenser and four ounces of bacon-flavored bubble solution. The Internet site we ordered from states that if you buy this product, you and your dog will, quote, "have so much fun, you'll want to order refills now!"
We have no reason to doubt this claim, other than the report of our photographer, Chuck, who e-mailed us as follows:
"In extensive consumer testing, which consisted of trying to take pictures of five dogs, we have learned that the Bubble Buddy bubble-blowing toy for dogs, with bacon-scented bubbles, is of absolutely no interest to said dogs. Humans could detect no scent of bacon in the bubble mixture, nor could the dogs, by all evidence."
(For the record, these five dogs all belong to a professional journalist, so we know they are fair and balanced.)
So we're not saying this product actually works. We're just saying, hey, WE bought it, so we're putting it in the Gift Guide.
Gift Guide Literary Selection
"Anyone Can Build a Tub-Style Mechanical Chicken Plucker," by Herrick Kimball. $19.95 from Whizbang Books, P.O. Box 1117, Moravia, NY 13118, phone: 315-497-9618, Internet: www.whizbangbooks.com
— Suggested by Barb Smith of Raymond, Maine.
Every year, except when we forget, we include a literary section in the Holiday Gift Guide. Our selection this year is "Anyone Can Build a Tub-Style Mechanical Chicken Plucker" (subtitle: "Plucks Turkeys, Geese and Ducks, Too!"). As the title suggests, this is a sweeping epic novel of love, lust and betrayal.
No, seriously, it's about plucking chickens. In fact it's dedicated to a Mr. Ernest Hausen of Fort Atkinson, Wis., who, in 1939, "hand-plucked a chicken in 4.4 seconds," a record that still stands today.
This book explains, in extreme detail, how you can build a mechanical chicken plucker at home. This is a LOT cheaper than going out and buying a ready-made chicken plucker, which can run you $2,000. (We here at the Gift Guide just buy naked chickens at the supermarket, but we're weird that way.)
In the moving introduction to this book, the author writes that he was once resigned to "a lifetime of hand-picking" the feathers off his chickens. But then, one "epiphanous day," he visited a friend who had built his own chicken-plucking equipment, and who demonstrated it using two chickens. Here's what happened next, in the author's own words, which we are not making up:
"Mike picked the denuded birds out and held them, heads dangling, in front of me. I'm sure my mouth was agape. It was one of the most beautiful and amazing things I had ever seen. I knew at that moment that I would have, that I must have, a mechanical tub picker of my own "
We're sorry, but if you can read those words and not think "This book 'has' to be made into a major motion picture starring Russell Crowe and Keanu Reeves as the men, and Courtney Love as one of the chickens," then you have a heart of stone.
Executive Laptop Steering Wheel Mount
$49.95 plus shipping and handling from Arkon Resources, Inc., 20 La Porte St., Arcadia, CAlif., 91006, phone: 800-841-0884, Internet: www.arkon.com
—Suggested by Stuart Williams of Kettering, Ohio.
Do you have a busy "multitasking" executive on your holiday gift list who is always talking on the cell phone, checking e-mail, working on spreadsheets and doing other executive things? If so, that person needs this amazing device, which attaches to a car steering wheel and converts it into a workspace for a laptop computer.
This means that, finally, the busy executive can make productive use of driving time formerly wasted by using the steering wheel to actually steer. This will definitely put him or her on the "fast track" to success! Or the hospital. But the important thing is, it will be fast.
Doggles
$24.50 plus shipping and handling from Solutions, P.O. Box 6878, Portland, ORe. 97228-6878, phone: 800-342-9988, Internet: www.solutionscatalog.com
—Suggested by Terri Card of Corvallis, Ore., and
Cindy Abell of Austin, Texas.
If you are a dog owner, you know that one of your dog's most important responsibilities is to ride in the car with you with its head sticking out the window, so that it can bark violently whenever it sees a potential enemy threat in the form of another dog, a squirrel, a mailbox, a flying insect, a cloud, nothing, etc.
Yes, protecting your car is a vital dog task, but it is also a physically demanding one. A dog sticking its head out the window, hour after hour, is likely to develop a condition that veterinarians call Wind Blowing On The Eyeballs Syndrome (WBOTES) which, if not treated, can, over time, cause the dog to blink. Of course your dog would never complain, but if it could talk, it would say to you: "Hey! Idiot! I need goggles!"
That is why you should give your dog a pair of these Doggle brand doggy goggles, which will enable your dog to protect you and your vehicle in style and comfort for many years, until it becomes old and feeble and goes to that Big Kennel in the Sky, at which point it can be replaced by the following tasteful item in our Holiday Gift Guide.
"Love Triangle" Turkey Decoy Set
$47.99 (currently sold out for the season) from Cabelas, One Cabela Drive, Sidney, NEb. 69160-9555, phone: 800-237-4444, Internet: www.cabelas.com
—Suggested by Ed Kavanaugh of Durham, N.C.
Each year, we like to include some kind of sportsperson item in the Holiday Gift Guide, because we frankly cannot believe the amount of thought that sportspersons put into the problem of how to outwit animals with the intelligence of cheese mold.
This year, we're pleased to present the "Love Triangle" flock of turkey decoys, which consists of three decoys, named (we swear) "Aggressive Jake," "Passive Jake" and "Three-Position Hen."
That's right: It's two guys and a gal, and the idea is that the sportsperson can position them in various ways, depending on which part of the mating season it is, to make the decoys appear more realistic to actual turkeys, which will then approach and be shot in a sportspersonalike manner by the sportsperson.
We don't understand the technical details. We were only dimly aware that turkeys even had sex. And we don't WANT to know what is meant by the term "three-position hen." But if you know somebody who does, that person really, really needs this gift.
Talking Toilet-Paper Dispenser
$19.95 plus shipping and handling from Spitfire Ventures, Inc., 520 Washington Blvd., 344, Marina Del Rey, CA 90292, phone: 310-842-6000, Internet: www.talkingtp.com
—Suggested by Victor Schwartz of Austin, Texas.
Just when you think we have already discovered every possible benefit that technology can give us, somebody comes up with an idea that makes you realize that you are correct.
This is just such an idea. This is a toilet-paper dispenser that contains an electronic device, so that you can record a message on it. When a person pulls on the toilet-paper roll, the device plays the message back, with a level of fidelity so low you have to hear it to believe it.
© The Miami Herald
Dave Barry is a humor columnist for the Miami Herald. Write to him c/o The Miami Herald, One Herald Plaza, Miami FL 33132.