You Know Where You Can Stick These Gifts...

I decided to have a wander around our local town the other day to see if I could pick up any bargains at the Charity Shops to pass off as brand new on my next outing with a date (when hell freezes over) and started to notice just how many of these kitsch gift shops are springing up everywhere with names such as The Friendly Banana Kabin, Butterflies, Bling & Bows and Chunky Monkey’s Chunka Junk (probably).

I wandered into one and was quite amazed at the tat that is on sale, attached to an astronomical price tag.


For instance, I can buy some Space Putty, which is “an un-put-downable liquid lava goo. What once used to be silly, and occasional potty, has now become spacey”. For £4.95! But it’s just metallic snot! And what do I need it for? If I was to purchase it for a friend, what does it say about my opinion of them? That they are obviously easily amused and have little neural activity going on in the old grey matter? If somebody bought me this, I would go back to their house and fling it at their newly painted walls, leaving a *flobbering* metallic stain to remind them of how cheap they are.


So what about a Gupi retailing at £39.95? For the uninitiated amongst you, the Gupi is a robot guinea pig which is a cuddly version of the Tamagochi pets that were all the rave a few years ago. Gupi has to be fed, watered, cuddled, talked to and can make MORE THAN 30 DIFFERENT SOUNDS! Oh whizzo! Not only do I have two cats which never stop yowling at me for a few crates of Whiskas every hour, now there’s a flippin’ paranoid robot which will moan at me, too. Why not just buy a real guinea pig – they don’t make more than a few odd squeaks and certainly won’t get emotional hang-ups if you don’t pass the time of day with them. A highly-strung furry robot? Whatever next?


Well, I shall tell you! I present to you, The Spider Catcher, retailing at only £9.95. As you can see, it resembles some sort of dental torture tool, but I am assured that it “wouldn’t hurt a fly”. Well, I am sorry, but that just isn’t the point. For flies, I have my good old trusty Vapona, and for spiders, I have the newspaper or my Doc Martens. If they leave a splattery mess, the cloth and the vac come out to get rid of the crunchy bits. Yes, it may sound cruel, but I am scared stiff of spiders and there’s no way I am going to faff about trying to pick up something that ought to be saddled and raced in the Grand National.


For £6.95, I can buy a USB Humping Dog. Really, I can. You plug this carnal canine into your USB port and watch it hump the PC tower. Those long winter evenings must simply fly by. There is a certain breed of male who would buy these in bulk and stare at them fixatedly through his working day, tittering dirtily and inviting anyone who comes past, to watch Rover hump his PC. It is the closest thing he will get to sex all year...

I could just imagine buying my mother one of these for her birthday.

Me: Happy Birthday, Mum. Hope you like it.
Mum: Oooh, thanks: a USB humping dog. Did you know you were adopted at birth?


If any of these gifts appeal to you, dear reader, you can view them and a great deal more at the online gift shop I Want One Of Those. But let me state quite categorically, that if any of you decide to buy me something for my birthday, I only want the USB Missile Launcher as I would like to pretend to be a Politician for a day.