Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Mile-high shopping

Over the course of our two-week sojourn in Utah, we accumulated so many books that we ended up shipping an entire box of them home. Between the gifts of books and our annual stopover at the BYU Bookstore to buy discount books, we packed probably 30 books into that box (and lost all the savings for buying discount by having to ship the lead-weight-like box to Oregon.) Well, when we were boarding our flight, I noticed that I'd put ALL my books in the box and had nothing to read. (I would have noticed it earlier, but Margaret and I were busy watching the last half of "High School Musical" and were so thoroughly engrossed in that that thinking about books was the last thing on my mind... that's how tv works!). Anyway, during the boring and undercaffeinated flight (I asked for a can of Diet Coke and all they gave me was one of those chintzy plastic cups full... and that was mainly ICE!) I was jonesing for reading material. I skimmed the in-flight magazine, but didn't find anything compelling. Well, except for this little tidbit of wisdom: "You know you're a youth when you beg to stay up til midnight on New Year's Eve. You know you're middle-aged when you have to stay up til midnight on New Year's Eve." I read that to Margaret and she cringed, as she was hoping to go to bed early, having been sucked of all her energy over the course of our Utah travels.

Anyway, after getting through the magazine, I of course picked up the SkyMall--that source of endess entertainment at the sheer volume of crap and questionable items that can be accumulated in one place. I could write about a lot of the items, but one in particular caught my attention. The Wrinkle Terminator+Satin Lift system. The story goes that researchers working under unbearable pressure from the Baby Boomer generation have isolated the gene that causes wrinkles! (Still no word on cancer.) Once this "S Complex Gene" was isolated, Japanese scientists developed a little doodad that uses NASA technology to generate a "copy sound wave." The catalog describes it as the discovery "that led to the development of a means to control wrinkles simply and electronically." Geesh. The picture shows a woman holding a little pen to her face--evidently reactivating her "S Complex Gene" (and she appears to be having a good time of it, as well.) Unfortunately, after scouring the SkyMall for the rest of the flight, I couldn't find the gizmo that uses "copy sound wave" technology to reactivate the hair follicle genes on the top of my head. When are the Japanese going to work on THAT?!? I guess if people are willing to buy a "Billy Bass singing fish," they're willing to fork over a hundred bucks for a... vibrating pen thingy.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Now I feel bad for buying you the Billy Bob singing bass for christmas and Marge the Betty Jo dancing doe......