Ode to Thrifting

Introduction

Sometimes when I’m feeling grateful for something, I am moved to write an ode to it. This is one of those times. (If you would like guidance writing your own sonnet, full instructions are here.) As usual, I provide copious footnotes.

The poem

Ode to Thrifting

A pair of Docs for only forty bucks?
I’ll take ‘em ‘cause they’re only barely used.                   2
Amer’can jeans, with tags still on—what luck!
How can a cheap-ass dude like me refuse?

I always check the housewares section too
Forever seeking out the perfect mug,                               6
And picking up a choice pint glass or two,
And all of it dirt cheap. Who’s feeling smug?

Of course there’s all the stuff you’d never buy.
Such pseudo-brands as George and Charter Club,        10
Godawful art, sad toys … we heave a sigh.
To thrift we have to sift … ay, there’s the rub.

     But when I think of forking out full price?
     No thanks—I’ll opt for thrift and toss the dice.         14

Footnotes & commentary

Title: Thrifting

A linguist once said (or maybe he said it twice, maybe he said it constantly), “There’s almost no word in the English language that can’t be verbed.” (Google’s Gemini A.I. says this was uttered by Jorge Luis Borges; ChatGPT says it was Calvin, of Calvin and Hobbes, and that the actual wording was “Verbing weirds language.”) I think “thrift” as a verb (begetting thrifting as a gerund) is perfectly legit. It means, of course, to shop at a thrift store. I think the gerund is more common but there’s no reason you couldn’t say, “I thrifted this sweet linen shirt” or, even better, “I hella thrifted this dope linen shirt,” if you don’t mind your kids making fun of you (and I don’t).

On a related note, I am also fine with “gift” as a verb, as in “my brother gifted me a giant pack of Q-tips” (which thankfully is a hypothetical scenario, as my household is overflowing with Q-tips, and why are they called that, anyway?). But “gifting” as a gerund, notably in the 2018 Nordstrom holiday ad campaign “Let’s Go Gifting!” almost makes my stomach turn. (The print ad actually did, so click that link at your peril.)

Should you be concerned about the quantity of commentary thus far, since we’re only three words into this poem? Yes, unless you’re enjoying this. If you’re not, click here immediately. (If you are, click that link later.)

To the uninitiated, “thrifting” might connote only the Salvation Army or Goodwill. But there are all kinds of variations, like consignment stores (pricier but with much better stuff), other charity outfits (e.g., local humane societies and Out of the Closet), and a variety of for-profit used stores ranging from mom and pops’ to big chains. My wife and daughters have become thrifting experts over the years, and I’ve benefited a lot in terms of secondhand thrift. (Get it?)

Line 1: Docs

This is a real-life example! In the past year I’ve scored not just one but two pairs of Doc Martens. One was $40 and the other was like $50 and they were both nearly mint. It’s not like I strictly needed either pair and I’d never have gone shopping specifically for this product, but you gotta have shoes, right? This is the sweet spot of thrifting: you can obviously never go hunting for something specific you need right now, but you never know what deal might jump out at you.

Line 2: barely used

Look how little wear there is on the soles. There was even less when I bought them.

Line 3: Amer’can

Obviously I needed to reduce this word to three syllables to fit the meter of my sonnet, but that’s only half of it. In my experience, people say “Amer’can” to suggest—ironically or not—heartland-style patriotism. Some may try to make patriotism political. I oppose this. Everyone in America should be openly patriotic, and what better way than to choose American-made products when possible? Often it’s not possible (as lamented at length here), so when I have the opportunity I snap it up.

The pair of American jeans isn’t a hypothetical example either. I found a pair of J Brand jeans, really well made right here in California, for like $50. I wasn’t familiar with this brand but quickly learned they typically go for like $200. I’m wearing those bad boys right now in fact.

Line 3: tags still on

Yes, these jeans (aka, this pant, these jean) still had the original tags. It’s amazing to me how often this is the case. Somebody evidently bought them, didn’t wear them, and either waited too long to change his mind (i.e., after the return window had closed) or hadn’t bothered to keep his receipt. So he sold them to a consignment store for something like an eighth of what he paid for them, probably without batting an eye. Obviously this is a scenario that could only happen in an affluent community like Pacific Heights, San Francisco (which is why it’s worth a trip out there to thrift). And thus, even as I’m sparing the environment by buying used stuff, I’m still susceptible to liberal guilt when I consider how much better thrifting is in the privileged Bay Area vs. many other parts of the country. I tried a Goodwill in Medford, Oregon (official city slogan: “There are worse places!”) and though I found a few good things (as I invariably do), I couldn’t believe how many of the garments were Kirkland brand. No thanks!

(By the way, if you are ready for some very heavy philosophy that is also very light humor, check out this video from the standup comedian Sheng Wang on what it means to wear Costco jeans.)

Line 4: refuse

Of course most of what goes on at a thrift store is refusing. Flicking through an endless rack of mostly godawful shirts is probably the original “swipe left” behavior.

But there are also people who refuse to go thrifting to begin with. I don’t just mean the rare sort who has so much money he or she can’t be bothered to shop used. It can also be cultural. A family friend, who emigrated here from China, explained to my wife that buying used clothing isn’t popular in her cohort. The unease has something to do with not wishing to inherit the energy of the previous owner (about whom you know nothing, after all). Used clothing may also have a historical association with poverty.

Of course such cultural reluctance to used clothing isn’t a given among Asians or anyone else. Consider my old UCSB pal we affectionately nicknamed “Sven” because he was Chinese. One day he was rocking this cool football jersey that he was absolutely swimming in, and I asked where he got it. “I found it,” he said, “at a party.” Being well off, he hadn’t snaked it for reasons of economy; he just liked it, apparently without worrying about who’d owned it before. Well, maybe he should have worried: when I saw him a week or two later and asked, “No football jersey today?” he replied, “Oh, man, I was at a party wearing it and this giant dude comes over, super pissed, and says, ‘Hey, that’s my jersey!’ Man, I’ve never taken a shirt off so fast in my life!”

Line 5: housewares

There was a time in my adult life when my wife and I decided we were no longer kids and should really have all matching plates, bowls, etc. And we lived that dream for a while, before we eventually broke everything. (This might have even been before we had kids along to help.) So now we’re over it. Just about every plate, saucer, bowl, and drinking vessel we own is from a thrift store, except for some Corelle salad plates and bowls that somehow soldier on. I don’t know how we got to be so clumsy, but there you have it.

When I was a kid, anything in my family’s household getting broken was a major incident, causing deep shame in the perp and over-the-top indignation in everyone else. It was like you’d crashed a car or something. So now, having mostly used housewares, it’s really nice to just shrug when I break something. After all, at least we got some use out of it, after buying it for like a dollar, and it had already  served some other family, possibly for years. I’m all about fully depreciated assets!

Line 6: perfect mug

I’ve gone through a number of pint-sized Sur La Table mugs, which I buy on sale when the current style of monogramming is being retired. Usually I can get a few with some really unpopular letter on them, like the over-stylized “J” that looks more like a stocking. When these mugs die, usually in a dishwasher accident, I’m kind of stuck because I need the large capacity, so I can’t just use one of our dozen or so tea mugs. I seldom find suitable, pint-size coffee mugs at thrift stores because they usually say something really dippy on them, like “MY PRETTY DAUGHTER THINKS I’M A GUN NUT,” or they commemorate a golf event or something.

My wife, though, has thrifted lots of really awesome diner-style mugs, very thick and so solid “you could bludgeon someone with one” (as she just said to me, making me wondering if that’s a vague threat … have I gotten on her bad side somehow?). Ideally such a mug is cream or off-white and doesn’t have any writing on it, though one of our favorites says “Ancient Mariner” with a picture of a sailing ship. I can just imagine the diner that mug outlived, which would be a mediocre but cozy place with a sea view, where the waitress snaps her gum and calls you “hon” and has a name like Doris or Debra.

Here’s one of our favorite thrift-store mugs.

Note also the nice wood-handled steak knife. We picked up a box of six of those at a little thrift store in Arcata for like $5; they’re West Bend brand, mid-century, made in USA and for sale on eBay for like $50! In the background there’s a recycled cream bottle we’re using as a vase so it’s even cheaper than Goodwill. On the flip side, at a Goodwill in White City, Oregon I saw a used Coke bottle for like $2.50. As if! Whoever priced that must have been sleepy, stoned, or both. But I snagged two perfect pint glasses there for 71 cents each with my senior discount. (Senior discount? Yep, my first! And yet later that day I was carded buying beer. Go figure!)

Line 8: smug

It’s not often I’d admit to feeling smug. But when J. Crew sells a cotton t-shirt for $60, and Sur La Table wants $24 for a chichi Le Creuset mug (in pastel pink or artichoke, ooh!), it feels really good to find a nice linen shirt in perfect condition for $9 and an off-white diner mug for under a buck. It’s like: in your face, retail industrial complex!

Line 9: stuff you’d never buy

A sonnet is too brief a form to even begin cataloguing all the weird stuff thrift stores sell that nobody could possibly want, like VHS cassettes, a grody plastic water bottle with a lipstick-stained straw, Lance Armstrong’s autobiography, cloying inspirational signs or plaques, a t-shirt commemorating a corporate team-building getaway … the possibilities are endless. You’ll probably have noted the strange handlebar-equipped helmet shown atop this post; I guess that was somebody’s attempt at a DIY rack of antlers. (No, my brother did not buy it.) If you have come across something truly strange you’d like to share, email me here or comment below.

There’s also stuff you’d totally buy but only for a Christmas white elephant gift exchange. Click here to learn about a wall hanging that actually functions reasonably as a doodad tray, and a mint bobblehead (still in the original box!) that turned out to be a collector’s item.

Line 10: pseudo-brands

For years I was puzzled to continually see brands in thrift stores that I never saw anywhere else. Finally I did some light research and sorted it out: these aren’t real manufacturer’s brands, they’re house brands contrived by stores I never shop at. No wonder I’d never heard of George … it’s a Walmart brand—like I’d ever buy clothes there! (Full disclosure: before I knew better, I actually did buy a George button-down shirt, and I like it just fine … but let’s keep that on the DL.)

As for Charter Club, it’s a Macy’s house brand, which isn’t exactly downscale, and in fact my wife warned me that by bagging on it in my poem I might be alienating some middle-class readers. Obviously I wouldn’t want to do that, but I’m pretty sure I’m not. After all, thrift shopping is already way cheaper, so who would try to gild the lily choosing down-market brands? I mean, when every button-down shirt is $9 regardless of brand, why settle? Besides, the name “Charter Club” is so transparently affected and puffed-up; it’s clearly intended to connote wealth, like an expensive chartered boat or an elite country club. It’s like the pretend-expensive Stauer wristwatch brand, or having “Estates” or “Acres” in the name of a suburban subdivision … overreach much? “Charter Club” is such a branding misstep by Macy’s, it comes off sounding even cheaper than Walmart.

Other brands I only ever see at thrift stores are Apt. 9 and Sonoma (Kohl’s); Xhilaration and Mossimo (Target); and Messini (which should be called McCheesy).

Line 11: Godawful art

Bad food, such as fast food or cheap pizza, can be a guilty pleasure, but bad art? We wish we could un-see it. It’s just so awful. I’m tempted to make this footnote an open letter to people who have realized how awful their art is, entreating them to actually destroy it instead of donating it. But then, a thrift store isn’t such a bad place to buy framed bad art,  just so you can pitch the canvas and reuse the frame.

Line 11: Sad toys

Some toys really are sad, like filthy or broken ones, or remote-control cars with no remote. But a lot of used toys only seem squalid to my adult eye and are actually perfectly good. When my kids were very young, their grandma bought them a bunch of random used toys which she kept at her house for when we visited. I don’t think she even picked them out—it was like a whole mesh bag of them for a fixed price at Eco-Thrift (which she cleverly calls “echo thrift”). My kids were enchanted (but then, they loved playing with a big pile of her spring-loaded hair clips, too). I think most of the antipathy toward used toys is the suggestion that the parents can’t afford new  ones, and thus aren’t fit to raise kids in these demanding times, blah blah blah. You know, typical parental guilt.

Line 12: have to sift

Having the time to dig through an endless amount of chaff to find the good stuff is another form of privilege. I reckon if I were a laborer, or a single mother working two jobs, I wouldn’t have the time or energy for thrifting. It also takes patience, and I suppose plenty of people just don’t have enough of it. Myself, I get a kick out of the amateur anthropology angle, so I’m always up for a trip to the thrift store. (And thrifting is a taste worth acquiring if your spouse and/or kids enjoy it.)

Line 12: there’s the rub

When writing a sonnet, I find it’s never a bad idea to work in a Shakespeare reference.

Line 13: forking

In 1987 I visited a thrift store in San Luis Obispo with my mom and my brother. I had my eye on this great serving fork that was about halfway between the size of a standard dinner fork and a regular serving fork. I figured it could help me eat even faster. The proprietor approached and asked if we could mind the store while she used the bathroom. In return, she gave me the fork! I used it for all my meals all through college, and it’s enjoying a second life as, well, a regular serving fork. I hope one of my kids continues using it long after I’m gone. (For more on this theme click here.)

Line 14: toss the dice

Have I ever left a thrift store empty-handed? Well, sure. But it’s rare, and generally somebody in my party finds something, and besides … a rare find like Docs for $40 builds up a lot of goodwill. (Get it?)

Postscript: ChatGPT

I’ve blogged before about ChatGPT’s attempts to write poetry. GPT-4-turbo is far better than GPT-3.5 in that it tends to get the meter and rhyme right, but it’s still no substitute for a human, in my opinion. I did, however, use it to research certain things for this post, such as the weird house brands and where they come from. After finishing my poem and footnotes (and rest assured, I’m not the type to have GPT do a “first draft” that I then “polish”), I asked GPT to write a sonnet of its own on this topic. Here it is:

A Thrifted Tale

Upon the racks of thrift, the brands they lie,
Forgotten names that once did softly shine,
Such pseudo-brands as George and Charter Club,
Their faded glory tucked ‘neath vintage line.

An aisle of treasures, old and full of charm,
Where once was grandeur, now lies humble fate,
These things, discarded, lose their worldly harm,
Yet still they wait, for hands to re-create.

The “downtrodden few” in thrift stores find their place,
Each mark and stain, a story left untold,
While “fledgling” dreams aspire to win the race,
Unseen, unsung, but silently grown bold.

     So let us seek the past, both lost and found,
     In secondhands, the future shall resound.

I don’t know about you, but I’m less than impressed. I won’t do a full critique other than to say this poem is lacking in concrete detail, and has a weakness for meaningless filler phrases like “softly shine,” “worldly harm,” and “hands to re-create.” GPT-4-Turbo should stick to its day job, HTML and coding.  You know, the job it stole from STEM grads.

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Email me here. For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

Bell’s Seasoning II - The Spawning

Introduction

Having been a drone for the better part of two days (as you shall soon learn), I am bound and determined to do something with my brain now. So why not blog? (Don’t answer—rhetorical question.) To get you in the mood for serious literature, I shall start with an epigram:

”They have a saying in Chicago, Mr. Bond. Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time, it’s enemy action.” –Auric Goldfinger (in Ian Fleming’s Goldfinger). 

Do I have an enemy meddling in my affairs? Read on and decide for yourself.

The quest for Bell’s

What is Bell’s seasoning? Well, I’m glad you asked. It is nothing less than the key to Thanksgiving, as documented at length here.  Bell’s goes in the stuffing and is, I believe, instrumental in its apotheosis from dried bread cubes and celery (useless on their own) to stuffing, that supreme Thanksgiving dish. (At this meal, I could probably do without the turkey, and could almost do without gravy —but without stuffing, you might as well forget the whole thing and get takeout Chinese.)

As documented in that first Bell’s post, one of the few ways I contribute to the Thanksgiving feast is to procure this all-important seasoning. That’s a harder task than you might expect. Some stores carry Bell’s, many don’t, and for some reason I can never remember where I got it the previous year. It’s just a blur … like when you have this vivid dream that somehow gets erased within minutes of your waking up. If I were smart I’d have checked out that previous post, though this didn’t occur to me until after my quest.

My strategy

Phoning a store for a stock check is nearly impossible these days. Even if you manage to get past the Interactive Voice Response system and are transferred to a human, they usually shunt you off to some other department and you bounce around until you give up. Or they put you on hold, try to find the item, get distracted, and eventually someone else picks up and you have to start from scratch—or, more often, the line just goes dead. I did phone Andronico’s on Solano Ave because they have legit customer service. It turns out (I only now discovered when rereading my last Bell’s post) that’s where I got the Bell’s last time. Alas, the clerk yesterday advised that they’re out of stock. This answer came swiftly, meaning she’d rather make up an answer on the spot than bother to check, or they’d had a run on Bell’s and I wasn’t the first person to ask.

So forget phoning. I decided to just stop in at this or that store in a gradually increasing radius until I found the Bell’s. Surely somebody would have this and my circle wouldn’t grow to encompass all of northern California … right? I had some time, because I started on Tuesday. (Only an idiot would brave the markets on the day before Thanksgiving, right?)

Store #1 – Berkeley Natural Grocery

This was a no-brainer. I was walking back from the mailbox, several blocks from my home, and Berkeley Natural was right on the way. I dig this store because a) it’s my “corner grocery,” b) they used to give my kids balloons (click here for details), and c) my younger daughter worked there one summer. Alas, though they have lots of bins and an admirable spice section, I did not find Bell’s there. I knew this was a wild card, my “fail-fast” foray, anyway and the effort cost me almost no time.

Store #2 – Magnani Poultry

This is where I went to pick up our turkey. It was supposed to be mobbed—they told us Monday would be a lot better than Tuesday for the pickup—but who wants to store a fresh turkey that long? Early signs were not good—there was no parking anywhere nearby and I had to park in a nearby neighborhood and walk a few blocks—but it wasn’t that crowded in there. I took a number, was served pretty quickly, and was told that the turkey pickup was a separate line, but since I had the guy, I bought a pound of organic local grass-fed beef from cows that are “encouraged to socialize.”

I got my turkey and yikes, it was $115. For that much, I hope it also had been encouraged to socialize. I should have just hit one of our neighborhood’s many stray turkeys with my car … it wouldn’t be hard to do. But then, I’d have had no idea how to pluck it. Plus, what if the impact didn’t kill it? (This is how I rationalize the $115.) I also picked up a quart of frozen turkey stock and—could it be, their extensive spice rack included Bell’s? It did not, alas. All kinds of rubs, sauces, and seasonings, but no Bell’s. There’s the rub.

Store #3 – Monterey Market

I walked over to this place because it’s just across the street from Magnani and has all kinds of cool stuff (beyond their produce which is excellent and cheap; for example, around $0.40 for a bunch of cilantro). They have like ninety kinds of mushroom, fifty kinds of pepper, all manner of salsas and spices and extracts, and … no Bell’s. But hey, it was only like a five-minute detour and I got in some really great people-watching, everyone from restaurant owners to frugal housewives to college professors to tech bros, and a variety of ethnicities including those who actually know the differences among the ninety kinds of mushrooms and fifty kinds of peppers.

Store #4 – Lucky

It was time to stop messing around and actually do some research. The website for Lucky, in the neighboring town of El Cerrito, indicated that this very location did in fact have Bell’s in stock. This is a bit of a schlep so I never go there. In the parking lot an old, run-down guy seemed to need help getting out of his car, and called out for assistance. I was happy to oblige, but when I reached him he said he just needed money to buy a sandwich. This was a bit perplexing. I mean, he had a car, right? How broke could he be? But then, he was sitting sideways on the car’s back seat, legs sticking out, with no driver in sight, so who knows, maybe it wasn’t his car. Maybe he just needed to sit somewhere and found this car unlocked. The smallest bill I had on me was a five. Oh well … happy holidays, dude.

 I made my way through the front door and immediately encountered a large security turnstile, manned by a security guard. I got through that and the next thing I came upon was the “Convenience Section,” an area containing pricier items like cigarettes and booze, all fenced in with a locked door requiring customer service assistance. “Convenience” indeed. The fluorescent lighting at Lucky was that overly intense type that makes you feel like you’re being interrogated. The whole scene was pretty downscale. I made my way over to the spice section and—denied! Here is the gap where the Bell’s should have been:

I headed to the customer service counter, which was oddly situated beyond the checkout lines so I had to squeeze past people. The place was teeming with shoppers. At the service desk I waited behind a woman with a giant clear jar of what looked like granulated ginger, but it was the size of a coffee can, and had been penetrated by moisture so the contents were like cement. She was having a protracted negotiation about a refund or exchange and there was a language barrier, so it took some time. Finally it was my turn. “You mean the spice mix in the yellow box, with the turkey on the front?” the clerk asked. Yes, yes, yes! She said, “Oh yeah, we have that. If it’s all out in Aisle 2, go to our seasonal display.” She pointed toward that area and assured me there’d be more Bell’s there. I headed over and scoured the area. Nothing.

But surely there’d be more in the back, right? I decided to head back toward customer service, but didn’t feel like squeezing through a checkout line again. Seeing some people on their way through the inbound security turnstile (it had two big gates, you could drive a truck through it) I decided to slip through there instead, like piggybacking in reverse. Well, this set off the security alarm, which was exceedingly loud and shrill. The security guard gave me a withering look that said, “Man, you’re a damn fool.”

The next clerk at customer service rang up her boss on the red line. He took forever to answer. “My boss isn’t answering!” she said, bewildered. Finally the boss answered and said I should head way to the back almost by the double-door exit, near the dairy, where there’s yet another holiday display that would have more Bell’s. I found my way there but it was another fool’s errand.

Store #5 – Ranch 99

Ranch 99 is a giant Asian grocery in the Pacific East mall in Richmond. It wasn’t all that far away, since I was already pretty far north. It was a long shot I figured, but then this place is vast and has, like, millions of products. Once in the mall I had a lot of other businesses to navigate, but eventually found Ranch 99. Walking around in there was like a Willy Wonka experience, one tantalizing aroma after another, none of them exactly recognizable but like being at a Chinese restaurant and/or an open-air bazaar. They have half an aisle just for seaweed, and more kinds of cup-o-noodles and ramen than you’ll ever see anywhere. I scanned several hundred wacky spices, but no Bell’s. So I headed over to the seafood department to look at the lobsters. Check this one out:

From this (hastily snapped) photo it’s hard to grasp the scale of this lobster. It was the size of a small dog. Now, unless this critter had been living in this tank for years, which I very much doubt, he (or she) was waaaaay over the size limit on lobsters and should have been thrown back in the ocean (details here). This was basically an illegal lobster.

Not wanting my trip to have been in vain, I searched for something to buy, that I couldn’t get elsewhere. I hit pay dirt with this cookie tin, perfect for a Christmas gift for one of my daughters:

But alas, it too was not meant to be:

Store #6 - Oaktown Spice Shop

Google Maps found me a sneaky way home, which took me on this frontage road and then right up Solano Ave where we have a Safeway. The Safeway app said they were out of stock, but I figured, what the heck, maybe it’s wrong? So I started to head up there and passed right by this giant spice emporium I’ve somehow never noticed before:

This place was huge—I mean, floor-to-ceiling spices—but it’s all this homegrown Oaktown stuff, no third party products like Bell’s. The clerk was very helpful, letting me sniff various products designed to enhance poultry and even stuffing. I’m getting over a cold (don’t worry, I was rocking a COVID mask) so I couldn’t smell all that well, but suffice to say nothing smelled even remotely like Bell’s. So it would be as inappropriate as, say, putting jelly on a hot dog instead of mustard. No way.

Store #7 – Safeway

This is where I normally shop and I found the spice section very quickly, and almost just as quickly ascertained that they were either out of Bell’s, as their app had warned me, or didn’t actually stock it and only made it available online through some partner, like they’re trying to be mini-Amazon or something. But hadn’t I bought Bell’s here before? I decided to check out the discount shelves where they put overstocked and discontinued items. I mean, you never know, right? No Bell’s, but I found this:

Huh? Girl Scout Seasoning? Is this for, like, cannibals? Next I headed over to the “Manager’s Special” shelf, at the other end of the store. I’ve found weird products there before that I liked, and normal products oddly reduced, so I figured what the hell. Alas, no Bell’s, but I did find this:

How about Crushed BS? Is that good in stuffing? Dang. At least when I wandered the shelves for something else to buy, so as not to go home empty-handed, I found a crazy QR-code-driven digital deal that saved me—I kid you not—$18.40 on eight cans of cream-style corn. Since when is this humble product so expensive? At this point I realized my blood sugar was getting precariously low so I headed home, made Southwestern Corn Goo for my visiting daughter, and called it a night.

Store #8 – Berkeley Bowl West

Berkley Bowl is a great supermarket. When I was in college, friends would say to me, “What?! You don’t know about Berkeley Bowl? You of all people would love Berkeley Bowl.” I ignored all their advice because I thought it was a bowling alley. Why, I’d wondered, do all these people thing I’m a bowler? Finally someone clarified that it’s a grocery. So yesterday I checked online and confirmed that their Berkeley Bowl West location (the one nearer me) had Bell’s in stock. At this point my wife had a list of stuff she forget to get for our feast, so it wasn’t a special trip (though it’s a lot farther than I usually go to shop).

Their parking lot was large and cramped and full. I made a hot lap in vain. They even have a parking garage, but I just didn’t feel like it. I took another lap and got lucky. It took ages to walk across that giant parking lot and get a cart. I made my way to the spice section and—denied!

I found a customer service clerk and asked if they had any more in the back. “No,” she sighed. I asked if their other location would have it. “They do carry it, but there is no way I could find out if it’s in stock.” Well heck, if they won’t disclose that proprietary information to their own employee over the phone, I didn’t see any point in calling them myself. I decided I better just head over there.

Now, if you’re starting to think I’m bat-shit crazy to stick with this obviously doomed search (as my wife certainly does), you should know that this will be my first Thanksgiving in at least twenty years without my mother present, either at her place or ours. No, it’s not that I’m some momma’s boy or anything; it’s just that to let my wife to fly solo on the feast without having Bell’s seasoning would be like setting her up to fail. I don’t want to put that kind of pressure on her. If my family isn’t making spontaneous and heartfelt yummy noises over the stuffing, it will be pretty obvious.

Store #9 – Berkeley Bowl

I headed up to the original Berkeley Bowl. Traffic was murder. Every single motorist in the Bay Area was on the road, and many of them were angry, probably hangry, and honking. I so badly wanted to judge them, for being so utterly stupid as to wait until Wednesday before finishing their Thanksgiving shopping, but here I was, one of them. Having to withhold judgment was just insult to injury. I arrived to find another huge parking lot, also cramped, seemingly designed for nothing but Minis and those little Fiats. I totally lucked out and found a spot next to a guy at the end of the row who was so worried about his (albeit humble) car getting dinged, he was at the very far edge of his spot, meaning I had room to squeeze in despite the SUV encroaching on my other side. I headed in past throngs of people going in both directions. It was like a music festival or Burning Man. Oddly, when these masses of people aren’t in cars, I don’t mind them at all.

Now, this is the Berkeley Bowl where my brother M— worked, and I’m going to tell you a fun story about that. M— worked in their excellent seafood department, and was impressed at how well it was run. But he had trouble making friends with the staff, who—being career blue-collar guys—might have assumed he was a fly-by-night college kid or something. One guy in particular, Jose, seemed a bit cold. Well, for various reasons, M— decided to move back to Boulder, and on his very last day working there he waited on a rather snooty old lady who told him something like, “Make it snappy.” She seemed so privileged and self-important, M— just couldn’t bring himself to move very quickly. Gone was his normal verve; he somehow felt like he was underwater and everything was happening in super-slo-mo. Eventually the lady became exasperated and demanded of Jose, “Why is he so slow?” Jose, taken aback, didn’t really know what to say and after an awkward pause, replied, “I don’t know. Why don’t you ask him?” Flummoxed, she could find no other response to this suggestion than to turn to M— and ask, “Why are you so slow?” M— stared at her and said, “Because I’m stupid. Okay?” He handed her her purchase and she stormed off. Jose looked over at him and said, “M—, you’re okay.”

And so, on to the spice section. Guess what:

No, that’s not a repeat of the first Berkeley Bowl picture. It’s just the same old story. Gobs of the competing products on either side (I got really sick of looking at this fancy Colman’s mustard powder and Old Bay seasoning, whatever those are) but the Bell’s was totally gone. The customer service clerk said, “Gosh, that’s odd, this was just stocked this morning!” There wouldn’t be more in the back, she advised, but they might have more in the boxes atop the shelves. She climbed a stepladder and rooted through at least a couple dozen boxes up there, wheeling the ladder down the entire aisle before finally giving up. But hey, at least she tried.

(By the way, did you notice that the Bell’s at this rather upscale store sells for only $3.79, whereas at the down-market Lucky it was $5.19? I’ve seen this disparity before and I just don’t get it…)

Store #10 – second Andronico’s

I decided to head home via Shattuck Ave, which would take me by another Safeway, this one much more chichi than the one near my place. Along the way I passed an Andronico’s I’d totally forgotten about. Since the first Andronico’s acknowledged that they normally did stock Bell’s, this seemed well worth a shot. The parking lot was completely full, and parking in the surrounding streets was no better. On my second hot lap I got lucky and a SUV was pulling out. This was a weird spot right up against a brick wall, but I had plenty of room. Maybe I was just too tired and frazzled, but my first approach was way too shallow and then I felt like I was committed. It took me a good bit of sawing back-and forth to nestle in there, during which time an old geezer in a motorized wheelchair oozed so gradually across my path it took all my patience to wave nicely at him and put on my best fake smile, and also during which time some other dude, as if to rub it in how far I was from the wall, passed by my car on that side. I finally got ‘er done and headed in to the store.

This had to be the flagship Andronico’s. Fricking giant place. I found the spice section, which was quite large and I counted over twenty different kinds of salt. They had stuff I hadn’t seen anywhere, but—you guessed it—no Bell’s.

Store #11 – second Safeway

The Safeway on Shattuck has the largest parking lot of all, and it was 100% full. They had a garage too, with a digital sign to indicate available spaces, but it was broken. I finally found a very narrow spot in the 15-minute section, between a big concrete median and a battered pickup truck full of all of somebody’s possessions, parked diagonally so it infringed significantly on my target spot. I just couldn’t get in there because my tires kept hitting the median. No wonder nobody had taken the spot. I finally managed to find parking along the street. I headed in, braved another crazy crowd, found the spice section, and I know you’re not gonna believe this, but … they didn’t have Bell’s. I was beginning to feel like the narrator of Poe’s “The Raven” who seems to take a masochistic pleasure in asking the bird question after question because he knows it will only reply, “Nevermore.” He’s basically torturing himself, as was I.

As a last resort, I double-checked the websites for Sprout’s and Whole Foods. Here’s what Whole Foods said:

What a blatant lie. “We can’t seem to find this product” actually means, “We have chosen not to stock this, even though we have an entire aisle for homeopathic remedies, aka snake oil.” I’m not necessarily averse to placebos, but they shouldn’t cost an arm and a leg; Whole Foods is basically stealing from clueless people. They’re dead to me. Sprouts showed me bell peppers, some kind of beer with Bell in the name, and hundreds of unrelated spices, but no love.

Well, that was that. I was done. Nobody could say I didn’t try. In fact, I realized it would be better not to even mention stores 10 and 11 to my wife. She already thought (knew?) I was crazy to be so persistent … why salt the wound?

Store #12 – Rose & Grove Market

As I headed home I realized there was one more store I could try, which had been next door to the bike shop I worked at in college (which is where I met my wife). Oddly, I’d never set foot in this little store, but always grasped it was a Berkeley institution. (Its very name attests to its longevity, since the street it’s on, Martin Luther King Jr. Way, was called Rose Street until 1984.) Rose & Grove is not a big place but hey, you never know. I decided if there happened to be street parking right out front, I would take that as a sign from God that it was worth checking out.

Well, guess what? There was a parking spot right out front—unbelievable! So I headed in. Now, if this story were an “ABC After School Special,” Rose & Grove would have had Bell’s Seasoning and the holiday would be saved. But what I encountered was almost the opposite: they had almost zero inventory. All the shelves were bare except for some booze behind the counter. The clerk informed me that they’d gone under and would have a new owner in a month or so. The end of an era, and the end of my quest.

“Wizard of Oz” ending

Oddly enough, my story has a happy ending, along the lines of “there’s no place like home” in “The Wizard of Oz.” No, I didn’t wake up and realize all this had been a dream. Rather, I arrived home defeated, but had a backup plan: on Monday night, foreseeing possible Bell’s supply issues, I took from the freezer a fresh box of it I’d put away last year. My mom has said it freezes just fine. But when I opened the box on Tuesday, I discovered to my great disappointment that it had almost no smell. Since I’m getting over a cold, I had my daughter smell it to double-check. Instead of saying, “Mmmmmm, that smells like Thanksgiving!” she frowned and said, “It doesn’t smell like anything.” Unlike Han Solo, the Bell’s had not survived the cryogenic freezing operation.

But now, in desperation, I gave it another sniff. Eureka! As it thawed out, it must have regained its potency. Like magic, it now smelled like Mom’s stuffing! I had my daughter sniff it again, and she agreed. It’s not ideal, but we should be fine. What a relief.

Enemy action?

What remains to solve is how so many places could possibly be out of Bell’s at the same time. It couldn’t possibly be coincidence. So I started to wonder if I’ve made any enemies who might want to thwart me in this quest. I’ve certainly seen evidence, when shopping, of a doppelganger at work, who buys up, say, all the Bonne Maman apricot jam (but no other flavor!) when it’s on sale because he has the same taste as I do and is just as much of a cheap bastard. But that has a logical explanation: he’s stocking up, same as I would. But who needs more than one box of Bell’s (or two, if freezing one for later)? What would be the motive?

Maybe it’s that first blog post. Maybe somebody read that, decided he hated me based on my writing style, and is an eccentric millionaire, and so went around buying up all the Bell’s, or (if he’s not local) hired some taskrabbit to do it. That could be. But then, why would somebody hate my blog that much (other than the Velominati, Andrew Tillin, or Margolis and Liebowitz)? This enemy action theory just doesn’t seem very realistic.

But then a much simpler explanation occurred to me. Perhaps my last Bell’s post simply hit the mark, and convinced all my readers that this particular seasoning really is the key to Thanksgiving. Maybe across the country, even across the world, including my own locale, people are buying up the Bell’s in droves. To test my theory, I looked up the stock price for Brady Corporation, which makes Bell’s seasoning. Sure enough, its price began a dizzying climb in late 2015, right around the time of that first post. I appear to be a victim of the very success my blog has brought about!

Yeah. That must be it.

Well, if you’ve made it to the end of this post, especially if this was after your big feast, congratulations. And have a very happy Thanksgiving!

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Email me here. For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

2021 Online Holiday Gift Guide

Introduction

Well, as the pandemic drags on for another holiday season, it kind of makes sense to do our gift shopping online. But where do we start? This year I consulted a number of gift guides in magazines, which are super helpful except the magazine is getting paid  by the manufacturer, so they tend not to mention any gotchas about these products. My blog is different: I’ll steer you toward some great gift ideas, but I’ll also point out any landmines I happen to see. So here is the 2021 collection … happy gifting!

Heartwarming message candle – $20.99

Here is a nice candle you can give as a gift. And it’s not just nice; according to the manufacturer, it is “hand poured [by] skilled artisans in the USA using only premium and cleanest soy wax available,” and is “ideal as an aromatherapy candle or relaxing candle for yoga, meditation, and stress relief.” And best of all, it is “decorated with a cute, fun, adorable, and always heart-warming message of assurance.”

One word of caution, though: the recipient of this gift needs to be a person who feels that violence against women is funny. And since the burn time of the candle is 45-55 hours, you’ll want to consider whether or not the joke is likely to get old.

Long distance touch bracelet – $108

It took me a moment to understand what these touch bracelets are for. The idea is, if you’re separated from your significant other for long periods, you can use these to stay in touch. Just “download the app that connects the set and tap your bracelet to send a Bond Touch™ to your loved one. Theirs will light up and vibrate, so they'll know you're thinking about them.”

You might be thinking, “Why wouldn’t I just send a text?” Well, what if you can’t think of anything to say? That’s the beauty of these … you just tap it every so often, mindlessly. And if you’re too busy to tap (for example, if you’re on a business trip) you could have a colleague, your personal assistant, or just about anybody tap it periodically. And if you get distracted and totally forget to send Bond Touches™? No problem—just blame the technology!

Shiitake mushroom log kit – $30

This mushroom log kit is perfect to give as a gift because if it proves defective and doesn’t produce any mushrooms, that’s not your problem. It’s based on kind of a far-fetched idea: the manufacturers “salvage recently felled trees and plant organic spores inside” and then you soak your log, keep it in a dark, damp place, and in six weeks you’re a grower! Myself, I never liked the dirt-like taste of shiitakes (my brother calls them “shitcakes”) but imagine how magical it would be if this actually worked.

A disclaimer: just about all the reviews I’ve read complain that nothing ever grows. It’s kind of heartbreaking how long people have stuck it out waiting: “more than a year,” “over 18+ months,” “17 months,” “almost a year.” That’s a mighty long time to have a damp log sitting around your house. But remember: you’re giving this away, so you can just give, forget, and move on!

Smartphone controlled coffee mug – $130

You know, coffee is one of life’s simple pleasures. I do a basic pour-over, and I grind my beans with an antique hand-cranked mill my daughter gave me.  Generally I drink the coffee over a period of about five minutes as I read the paper, so it doesn’t cool off, though occasionally I abandon it and then have to chuck it in the microwave for 20 or 30 seconds. Well, obviously this system isn’t good enough for a lot of modern types. Enter the Ember Temperature Control Smart Mug. This is utterly sophisticated and in fact is controlled by an app on your phone!

You can dial in whatever temperature suits you (for example, you might go a little cooler if you have a canker sore in your mouth, or a little hotter if you’re adding milk instead of a smaller quantity of cream), and you can do customized presets (though I’m not sure why), and can even receive notifications. That way, if your coffee is in another room and suddenly hits that magic temperature, it’ll summon you and you can go fetch it. (Why would your coffee be in the other room? Well, I don’t know … maybe you run a lab or something?) This electronic mug/coaster is really impressive … I mean, coffee has always been satisfying, but imagine the sense of utter fulfillment you’ll get every time you successfully complete a firmware update.

My only complaint with this product is that the app doesn’t appear to offer very robust analytics. I’d like to see temperature performance, tracked via charts and exportable CSV files, along with real-time and historical client data on the apps interfacing with the mug, and ideally an event log just to make sure everything is humming along smoothly.

Bourbon nosing expansion kit – $79

This handy assortment of aromatic extracts enables the bourbon aficionado to develop a huge new vocabulary of annoying scent terms so he can bloviate even more excessively than he does already, and take even more pride in his inflated sense of epicurean sophistication.

This product pays off in two ways. First, during the sniffing phase your spirits-loving man may be too busy to talk, giving you some much-needed respite. Second, when he has finished his education and starts pontificating at vast length about the hints of rose, plum, and graham cracker in his Parker’s Heritage 27 Year 2nd Edition bourbon, somebody is bound to finally lose patience and tell him to shut up, following which he’ll pout for days. More peace and quiet for you!

Illegal soap – $10

This Duke Cannon soap may seem like good clean fun, but it’s also kind of badass:

To be honest, I’m not sure where legality or even cutting of wood comes into play, because the pine in this soap is just a scent. But if the recipient of this gift gets off on people breaking the law in pursuit of luxury bath products, you won’t find a better gift anywhere.

Brain sensing headband – $200

So-called mental health experts (like these ones) have long advocated for disconnecting from all our tech and spending time offline, to try to relax. Well, that touchy-feely crap might be good enough for some people, but perhaps you know someone who prefers a more data-driven approach to mindfulness and downtime. For that type of digital maven, technology saves the day once again, in the form of the MUSE 2 Brain Sensing Headband. It measures your brain activity, heart rate, body movements, and breathing and gives you feedback through headphones (sold separately) and your Muse smartphone app. What could be more relaxing than downloading the app, upgrading it, syncing the phone with the headband, and then being told, though the app’s sounds, whether or not you’re relaxing properly?

But that’s not all! Maybe you had a good meditation session yesterday, but what if today your performance declined? That’s where the robust analytics come in. Look at all these stats … they’re like Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for your relaxation! You could totally paste these into PowerPoint slides for your guru, your sensei, your therapist, or your significant other to review.

I suppose I should mention that there’s no real explanation of how exactly this device works, and that a number of users gave less than favorable reviews. For example, one one-star review states, “I can only assume that the positive reviews have come from people who want this thing to work rather than any kind of basis in reality. The EEG was showing I was calm as a cucumber when I was wide eyed or thinking as hard as I can about the most stressful things in life. The heart rate sensor was about 30bpm out from my actual heart rate. The soundscapes are clunky, distracting and annoying.”

Albert Clock – $400

Remember when your brother bought your kids that incredibly loud and irksome electronic toy? Well, here’s your chance to get him back, with the most annoying clock ever made: it’s the exclusive Albert Clock. Feast your eyes on its diabolical face:

When do people check the time? It’s when they’re concerned about having enough of it, and the distance between that minute hand and the top of the hour can be reassuring. But the owner of this clock will have to stop, shift gears, waste valuable time calculating the hour and minute, and then spend more time trying to calm back down because he’s pissed off now about having had to do that. But he can’t complain to you about it, because that would set you up to say, “Surely a little simple arithmetic isn’t too much for you? I’d have thought you’d welcome the challenge.” It’s really the perfect revenge gift.

Art-themed enamel pin – $10

Here is a nice pin you can give to any friend or loved one who enjoys wearing pins.

Ah, but it’s more than just nice: it’s compelling. What’s with the nonstandard spelling of “guarantee”? And who is LB? Well, the lucky recipient of this pin, if she’s done her homework, can talk all about Louise Bourgeois, the eccentric French painter on whose work this pin is based. Of course, wearing this pin will mean answering the inevitable question, “‘Art guarantees sanity’ … is that even true?” It will also beg the follow-up question, “What about van Gough?” The best comeback to that? The pin-wearer can say dryly, “Actually, Bourgeois spent decades in therapy.” So, yeah ... this isn’t just a nice pin … it’s all ironic and provocative, too.

Stained picnic blanket – $150

Is this picnic blanket a manufacturer’s second? Nope, it’s meant to look like a painter spilled on it, or it went through the wash with your wife’s weird new Thai fisherman pants that always bleed on everything. Its stained/ruined look is what makes it artsy and sophisticated!

The only problem with this blanket is that the recipient might think you got it at a garage sale, or Goodwill, or that it’s a remnant from a fabric store. So you’ll have to somehow convey that it cost you 150 bucks, so your friend or loved one doesn’t use it in the garage, or get rid of it, etc.

Gorilla night light – $11

Maybe you’re that cool aunt or uncle that always needs to give the interesting, cool gift … and yet you don’t want to be edgy or anything, if your niece or nephew is very young. What, then, could be niftier—and at the same time cozier—than a gorilla-shaped nightlight?

Look how relaxed that kid is! (Full disclosure: that picture looks obviously photoshopped, but you get the idea.)

Of course, this nightlight is also remote controlled so using it will really make the kid really advanced and technical. And perhaps he or she will stare at it for long periods, wondering if all gorillas have Popeye-like forearms, and why this one has grid-covered body hair.

Bitcoin gewgaw

A certain type of blowhard just loves to blather about cryptocurrency. This is easy to do, since so many people know almost nothing about it while having the nagging sense that they should. Wouldn’t it be great if you could help your mansplaining friend lead people to this topic? Well, in that vein, what could be a more thoughtful gift than this non-fungible trinket, symbolic of a Bitcoin?

Now, I suppose this could backfire: what if the recipient loves its good looks and wants to display it, but isn’t actually comfortable talking about cryptocurrency? Well, then, as a separate gift, print out this blog post on the topic, which explains everything he’ll need to know to talk about Bitcoin long enough to exhaust anyone’s patience.

Gucci slipper-shoes – $995

And now it’s time to talk about the perfect gift: something utterly useful, but also fun, and decadent, and sophisticated, and—most important of all—is a product that your loved one never even knew existed. You’ll knock ‘em dead with the amazing Gucci dress shoe/slipper . Check these bad boys out.

I know what you’re thinking: “Am I fucking hallucinating?! Are those really a dress shoe in the front, and fur-lined flip-flops in the back? Like if Chewbacca went to prom?!” Yes. That’s exactly what they are.

Now, I’ll freely acknowledge that giving these as a gift does involve some risk, and not just because they cost almost a grand. Your recipient will need to ask himself, “Could I pull these off?” If he doubts himself, that’s when you lay this photo on him: because if this dude here can rock these slipper-shoes with aplomb, anybody can.

Take the plunge and buy them. You’ll thank/think me later.

A gift for the blogger?

I’ll bet I know just what you’re thinking: what gift should I get for Dana, as a reward for his tireless blogging all year? Aw, shucks … you don’t have to get me anything! But if you feel you must, just send me a nice card with some cash in it. I’m kind of sentimental that way.

Other albertnet holiday posts

• The 2020 Last-Minute Online Holiday Gift Guide
• The 2019 albertnet Online Holiday Gift Guide
• Interview With Santa Claus
• The 2018 albertnet Christmas Guide
• The Christmas Eve Doldrums
• A Cure for Holiday Consumerist Bloat
• The Black Friday That Wasn’t
• Santa Denial, and How Lance Armstrong Taught Me to Lie
• Fiction – The Happiest Christmas Story I Know
• My 2012 Holiday Newsletter: the Cat’s POV
• My 2011 Holiday Newsletter – Head Lice!
• My 2010 Holiday Newsletter – Importance of Santa Mythology
• Holiday Mall Report: the Lotion Sniper
• My 2009 Holiday Newsletter – Retail in the UK
• The Suppressed 2008 Holiday Newsletter
• Descent Into Chaos: My 2005 Holiday Newsletter

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Email me here. For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

Last-Minute Online Holiday Gift Guide!

Introduction 

If, like me, you’ve put off holiday shopping for too long, and find yourself in a community lockdown due to COVID-19, and are now forced to buy all your gifts online, you’ve come to the right place. I’ve got the hottest deals on the best merchandise this side of Amazon! Naw, just kidding … but I will help you navigate the world of strange and unique gifts, highlighting the salient features—and the most helpful reviews—of a number of products available online. (My blogging budget—i.e., zero—does not allow me to actually purchase and try these things, but at least I’ve saved you the legwork.)

M3 Naturals Himalayan Salt Scrub - $33

This M3 Naturals Natural Exfoliating Body and Face Soufflé is a very special product because it contains both collagen and stem cells. This strikes me as the kind of product that lotion snipers would be demo’ing if the malls were all open right now.

So is this the real deal? Well, these aren’t the same stem cells that help treat cancer. The product details explain that this scrub contains “a preparation of apple stem cells derived from the ‘Uttwiler Spätlauber’, a rare Swiss apple variety.” Now, I realize “Spätlauber” sounds a lot like “spit-lobber,” so you may suspect I made that up, but honestly I didn’t. (I wish I did.) Is it obvious this would help your skin? Beats me.

The most important positive review I found declared, “I have battled with have little pimple looking bumps all over my legs and arms cause by ingrown hairs under skin since I was in high school. I would pick them and make ugly places on myself which would make me look awful and made me feel so bad about myself. This product took care of that and more!” I have zero reason to suspect this reviewer is dishonest. In fact she is heartbreakingly candid. So at a bare minimum we can assume this product is a strong placebo. But can a placebo be given as a gift? That’s a tough one … how well do you know the intended recipient?

The top negative review, however, ought to give you some pause: “TERRIBLE PRODUCT, PLEASE DO NOT SWALLOW OR USE OR SENSITIVE AREA'S - GENITAL'S. This product is from the devil .. I have only seen bad effect's from this product. it is highly toxic & dangerous if swallowed also please heed advice and do not use on sensitive skin area's !!!!!!” So, knowing this … is it conscionable to give this as a gift without providing the disclaimer? But wouldn’t that kind of warning cast a pall? I’d say proceed very cautiously here…

Internet password journal - $9

This journal is unlike any other in that it has the phrase “Internet Passwords” embossed right on the cover.

Now, the cynic might say, “Couldn’t I just write my passwords down in the back of an existing journal, or even on the blank pages at the back of a paperback novel?” Well, yeah … you could, but that wouldn’t create the security risk of a burglar finding it and stealing your identity along with your silverware and electronics if he acts quickly. And more to the point, that wouldn’t enable your children to find all your passwords and start snooping on your email, checking out your bank balances, removing firewall restrictions, etc. How is your child supposed to become a hacker when you give her nothing to work with? Where has this journal been all your life?!

White sage stick - $7

The White Sage Stick from OurAncestorsRoots is the gift that says, “What the hell is it for?”

It’s surely worth $7 just to watch the recipient try to figure out what this thing is. Prolong the magic by helpfully explaining, “White Sage sticks are great for clearing and cleansing the energy around you and in your spaces.” The most helpful positive review declares, “The sage stick smells wonderful and I can't wait to get the smudging.” Smudging? Beats me. But this is helpful, in the sense that by quoting this, you can further draw out the sacred giving ceremony. And what about the most helpful negative review? There aren’t any! After all, on what basis could anybody possibly be disappointed by this product?

Beer chiller sticks - $33

These beer chiller sticks for bottles purport to solve the problem of forgetting to put beers in the fridge and facing the chilling terrifying prospect of drinking them warm. All you have to do is remember to put these sticks in the freezer at least 45 minutes advance of wanting to drink beer, and then insert them in your warm beer to cool it off.

Granted, you have to sip some of the warm beer to make room for the stick, but that may be nostalgic for you, taking you back to your college days when you’d occasionally find a can of warm Meister Brau in your roommate’s car and guzzle it down before he could stop you.

It’s hard to choose a single most helpful positive review so I’ll just do a mash-up: “I was impressed by the packaging and he loved it,” “I liked the gift package,” “More than expected the package was amazing top quality works great,” “The design and presentation of this product is excellent! I did give it as a gift, and don't know how well it actually functions, but it was spot on as a Christmas gift.”

As for the most useful negative review, it could be this: “Not sure what happen … put it in my beer and took a few sips then pulled it out to look at it and noticed the cap inside the tube popped out and the coolant had been seeping out in my beer the whole time..” Okay, maybe this guy just got unlucky. Another 1-star review: “Doesn't work. Followed directions, and just looking at the design, it does not direct beer through the cold part of it for long enough to make a difference. There is no way to make this heat transfer work out.” Should we take this amateur scientist at his word? Well … there are about 40 other reviews saying the same thing. An alternative to this gift might be a 3x5 card with the following message written in your very best handwriting: “Next time you forget to put beers in the fridge, just chuck a couple in the freezer for 20 minutes. Thank me later!”

Wallet card for Mom - $14

This engraved wallet card tells your mom exactly how you feel about her, in the eloquent words of an anonymous sage:

The amazing thing about this Engraved Wallet Card is that it doesn’t have a single grammatical gaff in it. That’s saying something, when the product manufacturer describes it thus: “The most aspiration words you want to say to your mom are engraved on the wallet. He will feel the deep love of you when he takes it out and sees it.”

Is this special enough to fork out $14 for? Well, the elephant pictures really are top notch, and aluminum is notoriously difficult to work with. Still, it’s hard not to suggest an alternative, such as a 3x5 card with the same message, written in your very best handwriting. Worried about copyright infringement? Don’t be. I’m not an intellectual property lawyer, but I can say confidently it wouldn’t be difficult to establish that every single sentiment on the card is the epitome of cliché. It’s the cumulative fusillade effect that makes it so sweet.

Whiskey glass with cigar rest - $26

This Kollea Cigar Whiskey Glass with Cigar Rest Holder is perfect for assholes. They’re always looking for a way to kick off a long stream of bloviating, and this “conversation starter” does the job. Meanwhile, it frees them from needing to have an ashtray to set their cigar down on, so now they can spread both foul smoke and ashes across their environment.

Do we care what the negative reviews have to say? Naw. The recipient of this gift is such an asshole, you almost hope he’ll hate it.

Death discussion starter - $10

It can be difficult for a father, especially the strong, silent type, to discuss his own mortality with his daughter. And yet, it needs to happen. This talisman necklace, reminiscent of military dog tags, does the job beautifully.

At first, the inscription just seems like an expression of love, but upon reflection the message is clear: “In all likelihood you are going to outlive me. I will die during your lifetime and you will need to deal with that. And then I will not be around to love you anymore.” And that bit about safety? It reminds her that nothing is for sure: she herself could die in an accident or something. These are hard things to discuss. The talisman does it for you. Brilliant!

And the reviews? My favorite 5-star review simply reads, “Wonderful gift – made my daughter cry.” The most useful 1-star may be this: “Broke withing 2 days of my daughter wearing it xxx disappointed.” But the metaphor of the broken chain kind of helps make the point, huh?

Mug for dangerous father - $10

This Protective Dad Mug is the gift that says, “I recognize that you are a dangerous man, possibly psychotic, but far from wanting to hide this disturbing fact, I think it should be celebrated, and by the way I consider myself pretty and you should know that.”

There is only one 1-star review and it’s blank. That’s too bad … I would like to know what the problem was. Either the mug arrived broken, or the printing was poor, or this gal learned the hard way that her dad is either a liberal or doesn’t consider her pretty enough to kill for. There are 19 5-star reviews but they’re all blank, too … I guess this mug speaks for itself.

Stainless steel “soap” - $9

The AMCO 8402 Rub-a-Way Bar Stainless Steel Odor Absorber purports to remove cooking odors, like that of crushed garlic, from your fingers.

This is one of those products that’s so wacky, it’d be super cool if it actually worked. And yet, how could it? Fortunately, there are over 10,000 consumer reviews of it, so establishing is effectiveness should be pretty easy … right?

Well, over 70% of reviewers gave it five stars, which seems compelling at first blush. But the 1-star and 2-star reviews all say pretty much the same thing: it doesn’t work. (Why would someone give 2-stars to a product that fundamentally fails to deliver on its primary function? I have no idea. I guess people are just nice.) So, over 600 people attest it does nothing. And it’s not like they’re doing it wrong … I mean, how hard could rubbing your fingers on steel be?

I researched this, and discovered that almost nobody has tested this who doesn’t have a vested interest in promoting it. NPR did a spot on the concept for “All Things Considered” and, based on hands-on testing by a professor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh, concluded it’s bogus. The New York Times also ran an article on it, but all they did was cite the NPR article with the caveat that was an awfully small study.

I’d try this out for you and report my findings here, but who am I to weigh in when a professor emeritus has already done so? Besides, I’m highly skeptical and don’t want to have stinky hands for the rest of this blog post. Next time I handle garlic or onions I’ll rub my fingers on the side of a chef’s knife and see. For now, here are my favorite reviews. Positive: “Works like a charm. Even gets dead mouse smell off your hands.” Median (3-star): “I gave my mom one of these and she was confused, she thought it was an actual bar of soap.” Negative: “Tried this ‘wonder bar’ which removed ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! Don't know about others who have reviewed it removes armpit odors! Really??? Use deodorant or something. Just the though groused me out.”

Lip balm for insecure men - $5

Macho men of the old school may think it unbecoming—effete, even—to fuss over their lips. Well, help is here at last. Well, not help exactly, it’s not like these big tough men need help—it’s just, well, look:

Check out those tough, soiled working man’s hands. He’s not some little girlie-man working a desk. He’s rugged even though he’s dapper. So is this Rugged & Dapper Lip Balm good stuff? Well, as the manufacturer tells us, it’s “TESTED ON MEN, NOT ANIMALS.” Think how cruel it would be to try this on, say, a pig. Haven’t the pigs suffered enough, with the lipstick? And of course this isn’t tested on women. That would be weird.

Pro and con reviews? Pro: “Its just so sleek and simple.” Con: “First off, this is not matte. It's misleading to claim it to be matte when it leaves your lips shiny, like lip gloss.” Gosh, that might be tough given the target market … what man wants to have glossy lips?

And does Rugged & Dapper offer SPF protection? Naw … that’s for sissies!

Phone sanitizer - $70

The UV Sanitizer & Wireless Charger kills bacteria using UV light. That’s what differentiates it from other Qi phone chargers (which typically cost only $13-20). All you do is place your phone in the special chamber, turn it on, and wait three minutes. Now all the invisible bacteria are, apparently, gone!

So does it work? Well, that’s a tough question because … well, this product reminds me of a joke. A guy boards a city bus and sees a fellow passenger holding an imaginary box, from which he pinches an imaginary powder that he then flings around in the air. The first guy says, “What are you doing?” The second guy replies, “It’s to keep away lions!” The first guy says, “There are no lions on this bus!” and the second guy says, “See? It’s working!”

But wait, there’s more to this product! It also does aromatherapy. “Add a few drops of plant-based essential oils (not included) to the built-in essence box and take in the soothing scents.” Um … could you add the oils to, say, a napkin or a kleenex and smell them that way? Well, yeah, you could … but how high-tech is that?

As for reviews, that’s easy because there’s only one (five stars!) and it’s so short I can quote the whole thing: “He uses it at home. When he gets home from work he puts it in the case to clean and sanitize his phone very practical.” And who is “he”? I have no idea. But I’ll bet he knows his stuff.

So yeah, you could drop $70 on this if the intended recipient isn’t the skeptical sort. If he is, you might consider instead giving him a 3x5 card with the following message written in your very best handwriting: “Next time your phone seems grubby, just wipe it on your pants!”

Wine filter – 8-pack for $20

The Wand Wine Filter by PureWine is a metal thingy you put in your wine glass. If you stir your wine with it intermittently for eight minutes it will remove 95% of the histamines and sulfites that make some people get “Headaches, Stuffy Nose, Skin Flush, Next-Day Hangovers and Upset Stomach.”

How’s it supposed to work? Beats me. One Amazon customer asked, “Could you publish results of any independent testing you have done, comparing the level of histamines and sulfites before and after using the wand?” Alas, the only response was, “I love it and it works.”

I suppose one risk of using this (after the pandemic, anyway) is that when you explain what it is to a fellow drinker, he’ll say, “Get a fucking backbone!” But then, this is speculation. I have no idea how wine people actually talk. I drink with beer people who a) never put wands in their glasses; b) never take anything close to eight minutes to drink a beer; and c) never have a histamine response to anything they drink.

My favorite positive review: “My boyfriend has never been able to drink wine due to an allergy to the sulfites … after one taste he would begin to get itchy and wheezy so I'd give him a Benadryl and take his glass away before we had more severe issues. These wands are super easy to use and we have been able to enjoy multiple bottles of wine together with no reactions!” Imagine being that guy, having his glass snatched away like that. These wands probably saved his relationship! I want to find that guy and give him—no, not a hug, you fool! Give him a tube of Rugged & Dapper lip balm.

But you should be aware of this negative review, too: “I ordered 8 wands to start and then a case because they work so well for the histamines. But every time I use them I have a problem with loose stool. It's now gotten so bad that I am having severe cramps and have had to give the wands away.” While this could obviously be a problem, I see opportunity here, too … somebody should market these as a stool softener! Say, that reminds me: wouldn’t “Loose Stool Event” be a good name for a rock band?

18k Gold Paper Clip - $1,500

Tiffany describes this product on their website: “An oversized paper clip is reimagined in 18k gold as a whimsical bookmark.”

Wow, what a generous and beautiful gift! The tricky part is to tactfully mention to the lucky recipient that a) this thing cost $1,500 so don’t you dare lose it, and b) since 18k gold is so soft, it’s actually very poorly suited to the task of clipping paper, so the paper clip should just be closed flat in the book, or employed solely as an objet d’art.

Care should also be taken to choose the right recipient; i.e., somebody callous enough to ignore the fact that over 12 million Americans are currently unemployed. We’re talking about somebody with a sufficient sense of entitlement that he would simply enjoy this curio for its beauty, ignoring the reality that for $1,500 you could provide lifesaving vaccinations for 8,000 children, or feed a malnourished child for almost 2½ years.

Any reviews for this product? Naw. Tiffany customers evidently don’t worry about such things.

A gift for the blogger?

I’ll bet I know just what you’re thinking: what gift should I get for Dana, as a reward for his tireless blogging all year? Aw, shucks … you don’t have to get me anything! But if you feel you must, I sure wouldn’t mind a stack a 3x5 cards…

Other albertnet holiday posts

• The 2019 albertnet Online Holiday Gift Guide
• Interview With Santa Claus
• The 2018 albertnet Christmas Guide
• The Christmas Eve Doldrums
• A Cure for Holiday Consumerist Bloat
• The Black Friday That Wasn’t
• Santa Denial, and How Lance Armstrong Taught Me to Lie
• Fiction – The Happiest Christmas Story I Know
• My 2012 Holiday Newsletter: the Cat’s POV
• My 2011 Holiday Newsletter – Head Lice!
• My 2010 Holiday Newsletter – Importance of Santa Mythology
• Holiday Mall Report: the Lotion Sniper
• My 2009 Holiday Newsletter – Retail in the UK
• The Suppressed 2008 Holiday Newsletter
• Descent Into Chaos: My 2005 Holiday Newsletter

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