Fun Gifts for $150,000 and Under
Budget Gift Guide: Here at the Off-Kilter Institute of Shopping Technology, dozens of trained professionals have been working around the clock to bring you the latest research on affordable and practical Christmas gifts.
Unfortunately, in an effort to cut costs, everyone we hired is from a foreign country, and we have no idea what they’re saying. However, we’re pretty sure they’d recommend the following stocking stuffers, which we found in a Hammacher Schlemmer catalog:
* A handcrafted, full-size carnival carousel, imported from Italy, decorated with scenes of Venice and equipped with 430 light bulbs. Seats 20. Price: $150,000. (Allow five months for construction and delivery.)
* A one-horse open sleigh, featuring Naugahyde seat and steel-reinforced fiberglass body, $6,000. (Horse and snow not included.)
* A camera-equipped, remote-controlled, flying model Cessna, for easy spying on neighbors, sporting events and U.S. presidents, $120.
* A golf cap with built-in, solar-powered fan to keep your head cool on the course, $30.
* A portable backyard ice rink, $300. (Below-freezing weather sold separately.)
* Battery-heated slippers, $55. (Warning: Do not wear when walking across portable backyard ice rink).
* An inflatable Velcro wall and three Velcro body suits, so you and your pals can take running leaps and stick to the wall, a la David Letterman. Yours for $6,000.
* An electric plate blanket, $40. Never eat from cold plates again!
* Our favorite item was the tilted alarm clock, which looks like a normal clock except its face is tilted so you can read it without lifting your head off the pillow. It’s available in right- or left-side-of-the-bed styles, $30. Not bad, but we’d rather have a tilted TV set for when we’re lying on the couch.
Plumbing Prize: An Iowa plumber has won 1998’s coveted Roto-Rooter Monster Root Award for retrieving a 74-foot-long willow root from a drain pipe. A picture of the root, which took three hours to remove, is on display in the Roto-Rooter Root Hall of Fame.
Loser of the Week: Our panel of judges unanimously bestows this week’s award on Sy Elliott, who recently filed a lawsuit because he and his poodle were ejected from a Mission Viejo restaurant. Elliott claims he is disabled by a heart condition and needs the pooch constantly by his side because it is trained to carry his medication.
Apparently Elliott hasn’t heard of a little-known invention called pockets.
Weird Charity Monitor: Victims of Hurricane Mitch should be back to normal soon. In recent weeks, they’ve received 24,000 boxes of Trix cereal from General Mills, five tons of dog chow from a pet-food company and--the latest donation--40,000 pairs of underwear from Fruit of the Loom.
Best Supermarket Tabloid Headline: “What a Way to Go: Hospital Accidentally Hooks Kidney Patient Up to Air Conditioner!” (Weekly World News)
This never would’ve happened if the patient owned a dialysis machine-carrying poodle.
Roy Rivenburg’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Unpaid Informants: https://www.hammacher.com, Wireless Flash News Service. Off-Kilter runs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
