SkyMall Monday: Cosmetic Teeth

by Mike Barish on

People have long hated going to the dentist. It’s no fun being chastised for your poor flossing habits, having your teeth drilled and drooling on yourself the rest of the day while the Novocaine wears off. That’s why people so often put off trips to the dentist. Add in people losing their health benefits because of the recession and proper oral care has fallen by the wayside. These poor habits are not without consequences. Gums recede. Your breath smells like the monkey house at the zoo. Finally, your teeth begin to fall out. Even more frightening than the dentist is the oral surgeon. Dental restoration is a long and painful process. The alternative, however, is wedging candy corn into your mouth and telling people that you got a deal on some gold teeth. Well, now there’s an affordable and trustworthy solution for those of you who have neglected your mouths. SkyMall, the people who brought us such useful health care products as the NECKpro Traction Device, Noseaid and the Night Sweat Alarm, comes the next big thing in the growing field of home dentistry. SkyMall Monday is excited to share SkyMall’s latest offering: Cosmetic Teeth.We’d all love the opportunity to have a movie star smile. However, cosmetic surgery is out of reach for most of us working stiffs. Thankfully, this DIY solution is perfect for people who love to do things with their own two hands. A great smile breeds confidence and can lead to job offers, requests for dates and the ability to chew solid foods. All the more reason to roll up your sleeves and shove your hands in your mouth for a little self improvement.

Think that dental procedures are best left to licensed professionals? Believe that you deserve more nitrous oxide? Well, while you tgo to your fancy shmancy dentist, everybody else will read the product description:

Stop worrying about what people will think of your teeth. Smile at pretty girls again…Once fitted (which can be done, by yourself, at home) they snap onto your upper teeth for a secure fit, yet remove easily at your discretion. Slip them on for job interviews, pictures, or whenever you need a boost of confidence. No adhesives are used, just your own natural bite.

No more wasting your time smiling at just the ugly girls! Rather than leaving your new teeth in your mouth all the time and running the risk of getting bored with them, you can slip them on only when you need that confidence boost while eating corn on the cob. And since your natural bite holds them in place, you’ll appear stoic and mysterious when you keep your mouth closed during conversations.

Shockingly, SkyMall does not permit returns if you are dissatisfied with this product, so make sure you really want these $40 fake teeth before ordering them from an in-flight catalog. Though I highly doubt that you’ll regret this purchase.

Take a bite out of your low self-esteem with these Cosmetic Teeth!

Check out all of the previous SkyMall Monday posts HERE.

SkyMall Monday: Top 5 Halloween Decorations

by Mike Barish on

Can you believe that we’re less than two weeks shy of Halloween? It seems like just yesterday that we were saying farewell to summer. But here we are, stocking up on candy, finalizing party plans and coordinating costumes with our friends. There’s just one thing that we forgot to do here at SkyMall Monday headquarters: decorate. You can’t celebrate Halloween without properly decorating your home. I’m not talking about a few fake cobwebs, a lame scarecrow and some childish ghosts hanging from your trees. No, when it comes to decorating for Halloween, you need to do things bigger, better and scarier than anyone else in your neighborhood. Unless you want kids egging your house, you better act like you know what you’re doing when it comes to everyone’s favorite scary holiday. Thankfully, SkyMall knows just how to turn your home from charming to chilling. This week, we’re taking a look at the Top 5 Halloween decorations in our favorite catalog.1. Chuckles the Clown (pictured above)

Clowns are inherently frightening. Fake clowns that stand 61″ inches tall are even more terrifying. Add in the fact that it “shakes slightly” and has “Realistic Taxidermy Eyes,” and you’re going to be providing the neighborhood kids with some real nightmare fuel. Even more bizarre: the motor requires a 9V battery. They still make 9V batteries? Scary.

2. Skullduggery Toilet Bowl Brush

Halloween decorations aren’t just for the outside of your home. Some haggard trick-or-treater will surely need to evacuate his bowels after a long night of asking strangers for candy (or clean up after pooping his pants upon seeing Chuckles the Clown). Make sure that he lets out a blood-curdling scream when he finds your bathroom. This brush will also ensure that even the scariest nut-filled nougaty messes don’t stain your toilet.

3. Peter Rottentail Costume

For a truly interactive decorative experience, you will need to have someone manning your yard at all times. Suit them up in this Peter Rottentail costume and you’re sure to keep people buzzing about how scary you’ve made your home. Plus, you can’t deny that that is one handsome vest. Vests are the best part of fall attire. They keep your core warm but allow a full range of motion for touch football games, long walks in the park and big leaps into piles of leaves. Yep, vests are pretty awesome. However, the lack of pants do make this costume a tad vulgar. Perhaps a pair of corduroys would complete this ensemble. Cords are probably the second-best article of fall clothing. They have ridges, just like the best potato chips. They make that cool sound when you walk. They remind you of your childhood. Get this rabbit some corduroys and he’ll be scaring people in style.

4. Creepy Cathy Animated Prop

I’ll defer to the product description on this one:

Her face is very scary and she pivots at the waist as she screams and groans…

Sounds like some of the girls I brought home from bars back in my younger days. Of course, those girls were taller than this 4′ little lady. Plus, “Her body is all latex – her entire torso, head, full length of arms and legs – not just plastic tubing or skinny metal armature.” Sit back and enjoy the looks on your friends’ faces when you tell them, “I only buy latex girls.”

5. Spinning Head Baby

Seriously, this thing is just creepy. No joke. Just unsettling.



Check out all of the previous SkyMall Monday posts HERE.

SkyMall Monday: Personal Electronic Transporter

by Mike Barish on

For the first time ever, I’m writing SkyMall Monday while onboard a plane. As I type this, I’m approximately 37,000 feet above a spotted layer a clouds providing an obstructed view of various Caribbean islands. Typically, I craft these posts from SkyMall Monday headquarters in New York using the SkyMall website. This week, however, I am thrilled to be getting back to the basics and enjoying the SkyMall catalog in its natural habitat. Perusing SkyMall aboard a plane gives me goosebumps as I carefully devour page after page of inventions birthed by necessity’s slutty sister, laziness. It’s sloth that guides so many of our modern decisions. We microwave meals because cooking is a bothersome chore. We trust Wikipedia and Google to immediately deliver information – no matter how inaccurate – because actual research is tedious. We wear Velcro shoes because laces are complicated. We’re all seeking protection from the ceaseless attack of effort. So, while I’m reclined (yes, I recline my seat) sevent miles above Earth reading the SkyMall catalog, all I can think about is how I can make my life less taxing once I land. I’m crippled by thoughts of trudging through the airport, walking to the grocery store tomorrow to restock my kitchen, hiking to the bathroom to avoid wetting my bed. My feet ache as the journeys play out in my mind. Surely there must be a way to avoid such labor. Then, on page 25 of the Summer 2010 edition of the SkyMall catalog, the end of those death marches presents itself. No longer must I force one leg in front of the other. There but by the grace of laziness goes the Electric Personal Transporter.The Electric Personal Transporter is everything the modern man of leisure needs. It’s electric, so it’s free from the environmental guilt that comes from gasoline-powered vehicles. It’s personal, which relieves the rider from the exhaustion bred by conversation with a co-passenger. Lastly, as a transporter, it does all the moving for you. It’s the most perfect invention since bacon wrapped bacon.

Think that the human body is perfectly designed for an ambulatory lifestyle? Well, ambulances are ambulatory and I don’t want to find myself being transported in the back of one of those. Think about that while you read the product description that I have to actually type out because I can’t copy-and-paste from the paper catalog resting on the tray table next to me:

This is the four-wheeled electric personal vehicle that provides effortless, smooth 12-14 mph transport on paved paths, driveways, or sidewalks for quick, easy errands or leisurely rides through the park.

Unlike the two-wheeled Segway, the Electric Personal Transporter comes with a basket to securely carry your Twinkies, Baconaisse and Double Downs with ease. With the ability to carry riders “up to 350 lbs. for up to 20 miles,” you can even ride to the Pizza Hut that’s just a little farther away but stuffs their crusts fuller than the one closer to your house. Score!

Necessity gets all the credit, but laziness has birthed litters of inventions that have revolutionized the way we live. Life is so hard that even recreation is tough. When relaxation becomes stressful, SkyMall provides the epidural so that laziness can pop out a beautiful baby Electric Personal Transporter.

Check out all of the previous SkyMall Monday posts HERE.

SkyMall Monday: Trailer Hitch & Cradle Chairs

by Mike Barish on

Football season is upon us and that can only mean two things: It’s time for tailgating and unrelenting gastrointestinal distress.

Nothing beats gathering with a dozen or so of your most sports-obsessed friends to eat sausages, steaks, burgers and other such indulgences at nine in the morning. How else will people know that you love your team? The problem comes after the meal and before kickoff. You’re bloated, gassy and in need of some relief. You can’t get back into your car because the noxious fumes emanating from your bowels could suffocate you. You can’t go into the stadium because they haven’t opened the gates yet. You don’t want to go to the bathroom in the parking lot because social mores prohibit your from popping a squat on the ground. All you need is a place to take the pressure off of your body.

Thankfully, SkyMall has just the thing to help you sneak in a pregame nap while all of those vitamins, minerals and nitrates course through your veins. When regular chairs aren’t enough, you need to up the ante. You need to keep your feet elevated and your buttocks properly supported after a breakfast of ribs and pulled pork. That’s why you look to SkyMall Monday. That’s why we’re looking at the Trailer Hitch & Cradle Chairs.The problem with regular chairs is that they sit on the ground. The ground is hard and once you’re full of meat and cheese, gravity begins to affect you more. It pulls you towards that hardness in a way that puts stress on your ankles, knees and GI tract. Soon, you’ll need to find a port-o-potty for more than just a tinkle. The last thing anyone wants is to have to sit down and do some real business in one of those bad boys. That’s why you need to reduce gravity’s (and pork’s) unrelenting pull on your organs as quickly as possible. The more relaxed you are as you attack that second six pack of Natty Light, the less seismic activity you’ll experience in your colon.

Think that normal chairs are perfectly adequate for tailgating? Don’t believe that a full slab of ribs is appropriate for one person to eat, let alone for breakfast before attending a football game at which they will most certainly indulge in french fries coated in cheese and/or cheese-like products? Well, why not read the product description while you munch on that apple and wonder why no one at the office ever invites you to happy hour:

Imagine the faces of your pre-game buddies when they see you kicking back in this! Innovative and patented design takes leisure to a whole new level, instantly bringing the laid back comfort of a hammock to your favorite campgrounds, tailgate parties and sporting events.

Yes, imagine the faces. Horror, disgust Awe, envy, concern over the tensile strength of the chair’s support beam.

Sure, you could bring a couple of beach chairs, but they take mere seconds to unload out of your car. Then you’ll have nothing else to do and get sucked into helping cook or, even worse, clean up afterward! By making your chair a complex system that must be securely fastened to your truck hitch, you ensure that you’ll be occupied for most of the tailgate preperation. By the time you’re done getting the chairs safely in place, the first round of bratwursts should be grilled to perfection and you’ll already be pretty buzzed. And isn’t that what football mornings are all about?

Take a load off (and keep a load out of your pants) with the Trailer Hitch & Cradle Chairs. Your hemorrhoids will be glad that you did.

Check out all of the previous SkyMall Monday posts HERE.

SkyMall Monday: Square Root Watch

by Mike Barish on

Around the country, kids are heading back to school. Lunches have been packed (hopefully with napkins carrying inspirational notes from moms with phrases such as “I’m proud of you”), notebooks are ready for doodling and detention rooms are already filling up. As another school year begins, kids everywhere are already asking their teachers, “Why do I need to know this?” and “When will I possibly have to use this information in real life?” These are valid questions. I’d love to go back in time and tell my biology teacher that I’ve never had to dissect a Garden Yeti in the SkyMall Monday headquarters. My drivers ed teacher never prepared me for piloting a Cruzin Cooler. That’s not to say that everything that kids learn in school is useless. There are plenty of concepts that are relevant in everyone’s day-to-day lives. Math, for example, is particularly relevant to a large percentage of the population. That’s why kids should be paying special attention to numbers this fall. If they want to tell time the SkyMall way, they’re going to need to be math whizzes. Forget digital; the best way to track time on your wrist is with the Square Root Watch.Your grandfather’s watch probably has a sundial on it. Your father’s watch most likely has Roman numerals. Your brother’s watch is digital, which is so 1980s. The only way to stand out now (and prove to yourself that paying attention in sixth grade math class rather than experimenting with drugs was a good decision) is to rock a watch with square roots in place of numbers. Let’s be honest here: Are square roots any more ridiculous than a completely numberless watch face?

Think that having to solve a math problem to know the time is a waste of, um, time? Were you always better at English than math? Well, you should have no problem reading the product description then:

Brainy math types will love this watch, but why should they have all the fun?

Brainy math types are currently running Google, Facebook and every other website that knows everything about you. Smart is cool now (even if Barbie struggles with math). Rather than deny it, embrace it. It beats risking Carpal Tunnel Syndrome from dishing out wedgies to all of those nerds.

Make all that time spent in drab classrooms passing juvenile notes to your friends worth it. Put your knowledge to use. Prove to your teachers that you will amount to something one day. Strap on the Square Root Watch and then check your cellphone to see what time it is.

Check out all of the previous SkyMall Monday posts HERE.