The Best (Worst) of Sky Mall

In the past five days, I spent roughly sixteen hours in the worst place in America: the coach section of a commercial airplane. Air travel is boredom, discomfort, humiliation and general human ugliness all wrapped up in an increasingly expensive package. The gaudy, unnecessary cherry on top of this sundae of misery is, without a doubt, the Sky Mall magazine sitting in that useless seat pouch. Sky Mall has been a punchline in and of itself for many years now, but it's obviously still a profitable venture. I can only imagine that Sky Mall only has two kinds of customers. One is the kind of person who spends his or her poverty-line wages on stupid crap like mail order decorative knives and collectible plates. The other are the people who are so rich that their lives have transformed into an endless quest to acquire. Flipping through the Sky Mall magazine on my last flight, I saw the following items and just couldn't let knowledge of their existence remain confined to the cabin of the jet.

The Genuine Handmade Irish Shillelagh

It occurs to me that anyone stupid enough to buy a mass-produced, mildly racist anachronism from an airplane magazine ought not to be permitted to handle his or her own money. If one actually does enough hiking to require a sturdy walking stick, one might notice the abundance of real wooden sticks that exist practically anywhere one might be inclined to hike.

The Telekinetic Obstacle Course

If you're going to make a questionable toy for rich people, you should remember to actually make it fun to use. Even if I believed this hundred dollar piece of garbage was truly capable of translating mental focus into a trigger to operate a small fan, I'd still be left with the combination of frustration and boredom of guiding a small item through a series of hazards.

The Marshmallow Shooter/ Automatic Marshmallow Bazooka

If anything is descriptive of the unbelievable idiocy behind Sky Mall, it's the fact that it sells not one, but two separate products designed to propel marshmallows as weapons. Despite its hefty price tag, I'm fairly certain that The Marshmallow Shooter is the kind of crappy toy occupying the shelves of discount stores. As for the Bazooka, it's nothing less than the most American toy ever devised. It's a weapon that shoots junk food and consumes the environment-destroying energy of a battery.

The "Keep Your Distance" Bug Vacuum

It's effectively a Dust Buster designed specifically to kill insects under a certain size. Ya know, for when you're too rich to squish pests with a tissue.

The Front Pocket Wallet

Do you live in 19th century London where pickpockets are a common nuisance? Are you so stupid that you honestly believe your current wallet is shaped in such a way that it can't be held in your front pocket? Then, boy oh boy, do we have a product for you!

The Desk-Sized Cast Iron Catapult and Guillotine

These are two of my favorite items from an entire section of Sky Mall dedicated to the most tacky decor imaginable. It only makes sense that the kind of guy who would buy a miniature medieval war machine to keep on his desk is the same kind of guy who would seriously consider decorating his lawn with a six-foot statue of the Egyptian god Anubis.

Food... Seriously

Sky Mall sells food. Sky Mall, a magazine full of useless crap you can only find on a freaking airplane, sells food. I can't even begin to imagine what life must be like for the kind of diseased mind that considers purchasing consumable products from Sky Mall. They have everything from disgusting-looking salami to a $6.00 pack of gum. But my favorite item, without a doubt, is the $70 Giant Cupcake, aka a freaking regular cake that hasn't been iced properly.

I don't know how frequently Sky Mall updates its catalog and I definitely don't fly enough to find out. From now on, every time I squeeze myself into a tiny airplane seat, I'm going to flip through that tome of stupidity in search of the most ridiculous items therein.