A Dangerous Lag In the Holiday...

The Twosome Blanket from Iceland

What with honest toilers getting laid off from their cube farm jobs, the assembly line, or their sore-footed retail labors, I sense a dangerous lull in The Holiday festivities. This quietus used to be taken up with enforced jollity like attending the Team Lunch at Steak and Ale, donating gifts for crack babies, and listening to co-worker carolers howl out some version of Little Drummer Boy. When we weren't getting hammered by Xmas cheer at work, you could find us at home cooking up a mega-casserole for The Division's big noontime spread. And if we weren't layering glop into a glass dish, wrapping crack-baby gifts, or staggering back from a hi-carb meal at El Fenix, we were plotting a bruising mall visit to Christmas shop.

But we're all broke and fired now, aren't we? And if we're not fired, we're broke, and if we're not broke, we're about to be fired. With worry afoot, we can't scamper through the stores the way we once did, grabbing lavish gifts with all the thought of a meth-amped gerbil. The usual buzzy Holiday impetus is stalled-out, and on a national scale too. This current dead time makes me fearful for my fellow citizens who are, no doubt, trolling the Internet on a misguided quest for the cheap and unusual gift. Or, worse, just the stunningly unusual gift (see above).

After many years as an artist, I've learned that most situations don't require a lot of creativity and that there are numerous occasions when creativity is to be strongly eschewed. The Holiday is one. Forget what the hag-mags tell you. Your beloved really doesn't want a hand-scrawled certificate promising 100 Hugs! Nor will she want the Tater Mitts (shown below).

Tater Mitts

The Tater Mitts, which are both cheap and unusual, violate the no creativity dictum that operates in most real-life situations. Somewhere around the Bronze Age, our ancestors learned how to chisel the hide off a potato using a knife and thought, Okay. Got that one knocked. Since then, not too many variations on the chore have been needed. The same, perhaps, goes for Toilet Candy (below).

Toilet Candy

I haven't noticed that either small children or adults need to be snookered into eating candy, so the logic behind this novelty eludes me. I'll give a quick product description. The toilet proper is filled with two flavor choices of lumpy powder--grape or watermelon, or going by color alone, either green or pale blue. Since green gives rise to some unspeakable toilet-associations, I suggest blue which, at least, connotes that perpetual blue toilet cleaner found in some bathrooms.The product also comes with two mini-toilet plungers. To consume, you lick a plunger, stick it in the bowl, lick it off, and repeat. When I first came across this, I wondered who on earth the target consumer might be, but on closer examination, I think I know: people who eat out of toilets.

Tell me I'm wrong.