Anyone who has flown almost any commercial airlines more than a few times is intimately familiar with Skymall magazine. Skymall is required browsing for any airline travel warrior.
It is a magazine of gadgets, oddities, collectible and future garage sale items that are supposed to make our lives easier, more enjoyable or simply give you an excuse to open up an EBay account. When do we reach the reach the upper limits of our 3o Thousand feet boredom and finally read Skymall cover to cover? Here are a few reasons:
When you are stuck on a flight with no Wi-Fi;
When you have read American Way Magazine cover to cover, and are upset that someone else has done the crossword puzzle and you failed the MENSA quiz;
When you have mooched and read the US Magazine, USA today and Better Homes and Gardens from the passenger in the seat next to you;
When the baby next to you is screaming uncontrollably and you need a distraction with the only things left to read being the barf bag and the card that reminds you of what won’t save your life if your plane goes down.
When you have done all of the above you finally pull Skymall out of the seat-back pocket.
The effect of Skymall magazine on the enjoyability of a flight is not to be taken lightly. Have my fellow frequent-flyers not also experienced that irritated knot in the stomach and let out an exasperated sigh when you excitedly pull out the Skymall mag and see that it is the same issue that you read on the last flight? How many times can we look at a Rosetta Stone ad and try to convince ourselves that it would be useful to learn Pashto?
I have on many a flight gone through every item in the magazine analyzing its cost-benefit to society and simply wondering who would be stupid enough to actually buy a Indoor Dog Restroom. Is there really an impulse buy at 30k feet?
On a recent flight I was excited to see that there was a new edition of Skymall. With Father’s Day right around the corner what better place to start than Skymall and its 240 plus pages of very cool to very weird gadgets and gifts for the traveler who has everything and the gift recipient who will say thanks but will really be thinking WTF!
Here are my top 10 WTF Skymall gifts:
The Underwater Cell Phone System(1,790.00) It advertises as follows:
With the Alpha UWCP, talk with someone 15,000 miles away while diving a tropical reef or in your pool! This complete and sophisticated communication diving system can do it.
I still can not figure this out. Is this in case you get drunk and go overboard on a cruise ship? What’s more, do you really need an underwater phone to make a call from your swimming pool? Spend 50 bucks on a waterproof case instead! Maybe this is a big seller in the treasure hunter profession. At almost $1800.00 we may not see this in many garage sales but I have no doubt one will turn up inside a shark one day.
Toppik Hair Building Fibers Being follically challenged and having often thought of coughing up the big bucks for the Bosley Clinic, this item caught my attention. I frankly thought that this stuff went the way of the “As Seen On TV” Ronco Veg-o-matic and Ginsu knives. It advertises:
Many A-list celebrities use Toppik to enhance their image, on screen and off. Hollywood stars trust Toppik. It’s undetectable, even in close ups and stays on through wind, rain and perspiration.
Even more interesting to me than whether it works are these mysterious “A-List” celebs. I want to know what celebrities will admit to spray painting their heads. TMZ should get on this immediately. Conspicuously missing was a disclaimer that Toppic should not be used by people who are color-blind. I smell a lawsuit…
Old Yankee Stadium Seat. (799.00) A used seat from the old Yankee Stadium. Unless Babe Ruth or some other Yankee legend sat in it or autographed it, this is a WTF item. It is however is certainly more reasonable than a seat a the new Yankee Stadium. My advice is to pay the 799.00 for this seat, put it in front of your big screen and MLB package. You can then laugh at the suckers who coughed up tens of thousands of dollars to sit in something that they will be able to buy for about 800.00 in the 2040 Skymall Holiday edition.
Remote Controlled Tarantula. Any adult that buys this for himself has repressed violent tendencies. If he is buying it for his kid, what message is this supposed to send? Terrorize your fellow children with big disgusting bugs?
Nice. I am so weirded out by spiders that just picture of this gives me the willies. This faux spider would not last five minutes in my house. Survival reflex would take over and it would be squashed into 1000 bits of circuits and switches
Oil Extractor(69.95) They advertise this like it is the common thing to do to crawl under your own car and change your own oil. The ad states:
“This is How Mercedes Factory trained techs change oil”
Well isn’t that why we don’t crawl under our own cars and let them do it ?
The King Tutankhamens Egyptian Throne Chair(895.00)
Our artists capture every detail when they recreated this attention-demanding, full-size replica throne from King Tut’s 3,500-year-old museum original in Cairo. This substantial designer resin work of furniture art is exquisitely hand-painted in the rich palette of Egypt and features real gold leaf.
Maybe this is the impulse buy for the Trans-Atlantic flights that show The Ten Commandments. So it shall be written, so it shall be done…
Basho The Sumo Wrestler (95.00). “Basho crouches in his mawashi (Sumo belt) in these intricate sculpts with wide stances. This Toscano-exclusive heavyweight is cast in quality designer resin for display in home or garden.”
If you are looking for an easy way out of your marriage simply give Basho to your wife for Christmas or place him a center piece on the dinner table right after she has told you she feels like she needs to lose a few pounds… On the other hand, I only glanced at him for a second and immediately renewed my gym membership. At 95 bucks it beats the hell out of lipo.
Star Trek Captains Chair (2717.01) “Never before offered to fans, this officially licensed replica features a working swivel design, light-up controls and sound effects from the legendary Star Trek series. Constructed using expert measurements and the highest quality durable materials, don’t miss your chance to command your own Starfleet vessel from the safety of your home!”
I am admittedly a Trekkie but a faux chair that was never even “Enterprise Used”? I would rather offer the 2700 bucks to William Shatner or Patrick Stewart to hang out with me for the night.
Electronic Listening Device. (59.95) “Powerful enough to capture distant sounds from 300 feet away. Zoom in and see what you’re hearing. Sounds and images impossible for the human ears and eyes to pick up now seem as if you’re only a couple of feet away. This secret surveillance device is perfect for when you really need to know what’s going on.”
The perfect gift for the soon to be divorcing couple so they can spy on each other. If your spouse or significant other suddenly turns up with this gadget and tells you it is to pick up “bird sounds” you should be suspicious. Do you really want to be with someone who has those kind of voyeuristic tendencies? This would be a much bigger seller as a “his and hers” so you can spy on each other.
Last but not least. Are you still wondering who would be stupid enough to buy the Indoor Dog Restroom? Wonder no more. It was me. Yes I was suckered into the Skymall impulse world of future garage sale items. Was my dog happy to do her business on her new AstroTurf? The answer was yes but it was not the business I expected.
What they don’t tell you is that for this to work you have to have your dog piss in a cup and pour it on the turf so she gets the scent. I dutifully followed the instructions. I poured her “business” on the fake grass. My dog walked right over to it, looked up at me and took a dump on the AstroTurf. I am still trying to fumigate my apartment. WTF!!
You can not spend any decent amount of time in New York City’s Times Square without seeing or “running into” the Naked Cowboy. It’s a guy named Robert Burck who, wearing nothing but a pair tightly fitting perv shorts, plays his guitar for the tourists, gawkers and registered sex offenders looking for a quick visual fix.
