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my holiday shopping began recently with a trip to the fantastically craptastic Big Lots. besides having the nations worst name, Big Lots claims to be the "nations largest broadline closeout retailer". an odd choice for a marketing catch phrase, i doubt many of their shoppers can decipher the meaning of "broadline closeout retailer". i emailed Big Lots a few catch phrases that might be a little more effective; "for the discriminating shopper unsatisfied with dollar general", "more crap than you can shake a stick at" and finally "our low, low prices are indicators of quality".
Big Lots sell things like hammers that don't work, giant bags of cookies suffering from early 70's Ukrainian packaging design, and an assortment of pre-broken toys. all things you'd never buy until you see the price. I had no desire or use for a plastic bucket filled with broken glass and macadamian nuts, but at $2, i'd have been a fool to pass it up.
so, in other words, Big Lots is not really the place you would holiday shop for the people you care about. it's an excellent place to find white elephant gifts for all the people at the office that you could care less about. for that reason, i love Big Lots. perhaps i should add "gifts for the people you hate" to the list of potential catch phrases.
stumbling across whoopee cushions in Big Lots was not a surprise, the fact that they were new self inflating whoopee cushions was a great surprise. such advanced technology surely belongs in the sharper image store, certainly not Big Lots. my love for technology coupled with my obsession with all things poo related, rendered me immediately fascinated. I was transfixed. "try me" proclaimed the packaging, such an invite could not be ignored. i squeezed it, nothing. i squeezed again, still nothing. the mechanical mind now engaged, i examined the self inflating whoopie cushion for the design flaw resulting in it's silence. i noticed the air intake portal was positioned on the top side center of the cushion. this is an important aspect of the design. in normal field use, a fat blubbery ass would block the escape of air through the intake, forcing it out the flapping rubber exhaust portal. the result being a sound easily mistaken for a big, fat, juicy, ass ripping fart.
putting the new theory into action, this time i squeezed with my thumb covering the intake portal. it worked. it worked really well. it worked really loud. in fact, it was the loudness that broke me from my transfixed state. it was the loudness that made me realize i had just made a big, fat, juicy, ass ripping fart noise in a store filled with shoppers. shoppers with ears. shoppers with mouths that will no doubt soon be recounting the story of some dude ripping monster farts at Big Lots.
i attempted to mitigate the embarrassment, with exaggerated theatrical movements trying to draw attention to the whoopie cushion. I dropped the it, picked it up and took it for a few laps around the store in hopes people would notice the whoopee cushion and realize i am not a public farter, only a sad, pathetic man obsessed with all things poo.
more about the design of the self inflating whoopie cushion...
I fear the positioning of the intake portal may have potentially horrific results. say one was to plant the cushion in the chair of a small and frail person. perhaps the chair of your grandmother. if grandmother sat just right with her personal exhaust portal perfectly aligned with the intake portal of the cushion, there is the chance the that the suction power of the self inflation device might deflate your grandmother. if this happened, i suggest quickly reversing the cushion, affixing the cushions exhaust portal to grandma's exhaust portal and squeezing the cushion, hopefully she will re-inflate.
one final thought on the self inflating whoopee cushion. personally i am glad to see the whoopie cushion industry looking into new inflation technologies but refusing to change the traditional design of the sound device used. it may be cheaper to use a microchip containing a digital recording of a fart. but the industry knows that digital audio has it's failings. the fidelity of a digitally sampled fart lacks the warmth and personality of an analog fart.
Posted by griff at December 21, 2004 10:28 AM