We could almost throw in the 1000 thread count towel and just admit we’ve been insurmountably topped in the Wrongest Product Awards competition. First came the suggestion from a reader following our nomination of the lighted pillow spied in a local outpost of a chain store. (local chain store = oxymoron?) He noticed the proud and iconic “As Seen on TV” logo and mentioned he’d once survived a visit to the As Seen on TV store. (We didn’t even know there was such a thing. Is everything displayed on TV’s?) For our awards, he said, it was a “target-rich environment.”
Then along comes a post from one of our favorite blogs, Unconsumption, linking to a thoroughly justified lampoon of the Williams-Sonoma catalog. In it one can apparently find such necessities of life as a waffle batter dispenser (in what I can only assume is a related post, Unconsumption points out a suggestion by Real Simple for a free one), an acorn shaped wooden container for twine (they squandered, though, the opportunity to call it a twine cozy), and my own
$29.95 from Williams-Sonoma vs free as suggested by Real Simple via Unconsumption
favorite gift for an instant greenie: a “reclaimed rustic chicken coop” that costs $759.95 with a painted chicken on the side or $599.95 without. The site’s author notes “and honestly, if you’re buying a goddamn chicken coop from a catalog, why NOT spring for the painted chicken?”
As far as our simply conceding defeat here and now in the search for the Wrongest Product, we prefer to take it as a sign of just how many candidates there are out there.
Previous Wrongest Product Award nominations
Wrongest Product Award nominations are open! Send your nominees to ImNotBuyinIt (at) EcoOptimism.com.