Amazing tales of prodigious products
We do live in a marvelous world. A world where every problem can be overcome with just the right commercial product. Consider the flood: in earlier times when confronted with rising waters, you simply took up your adze and constructed an ark. No more problem. Now, according to my friends in infomercial land, we have an alternative.
The Amazing ShamWOW can lift up to 20 times its own weight in liquid. Amazing! Well, not particularly… consider that a dry rag might tip the scales at 15 grams (your measure may vary). If I do a bit of quick math, then 15 x 20 = 300 grams, which every schoolboy realizes is the weight of 300 ml of wet, runny water. Just over a juice cup full, for those with small children. If a rag can’t mop up a spill of that dimension, then I’m going back to working on the ark I keep around for household emergencies. While out in the shops this afternoon, I actually found the amazing product on display, at the same price as advertised on TV, without the fine print of “shipping and handling”. I have an ark, for the shipping part. In the box, some pieces of cloth that seemed amazingly like felt. It felt like felt, it smelt like felt, it… well, you get the idea. Thankfully, I had no rising waters to contend with, so I didn’t actually buy any.
We were in to a store that sold nothing BUT those amazing TV articles that flood (inundate) the airwaves at the oddest times of day and night. Steamy irons. Foot massagers. Popcorn poppers. Too many treasures to recount without spinning my own version of A Thousand And One Nights. All reaching out to improve my life. I can believe the infomercial guys, right?
