The Christmas Gifts We Really Want Just Don't Exist
--The Step-Aside Juice Cleanse Detector App. This app monitors your social networks and identifies any friend or family member who might be in the midst of a faddish juice cleanse. (The app has a 100 percent accuracy rating, because no person has ever done a juice cleanse without bringing it up on social media.) If you come within speaking distance of any "cleansers," your phone rings, allowing you time to avoid that person before he or she starts telling you how the juice cleanse is going. If that first line of defense fails, just shake your phone and the app calls police to your location. It can also be tailored to identify: guys who brew their own beer and have recently finished a batch they might want to tell you about; people who've recently become vegans; and people in your networks with a high propensity for sharing poetry they've written.
--The Serenity Flatumat. Meant to be a relaxing experience, a quiet yoga class can become a real stress fest if you start feeling gassy. But now you can turn that downward-facing-dog frown upside down with this high-tech noise-emitting mat. If you're about to break wind midmeditation, just give the Serenity Flatumat a squeeze and its patented touch-foam technology triggers a long "ommmmmm" of white noise that can cloak a butt burp of up to 80 decibels. Let your chakras rest easy knowing the question of "who dealt it?" in the 6 p.m. hot yoga class will forever remain a mystical mystery.
--The Personal Space Taser. People -- there are just too many of them, right? They crowd you in line at the grocery store and bump into you on the train. Sometimes it makes you want to unleash your Fecalnator 5000 drone on them. But what if there were an easier, less deadly way to get some breathing room?
There is, and it's called the Personal Space Taser, or PST. With the look of a fashionable coat, the PST is equipped with sensitive proximity sensors. If someone enters your predetermined Me Zone, that person gets a friendly but powerful zap that says, "Back off, bub, or I will literally electrocute you." (Available in a wide array of colors and patterns, batteries not included.)
Sensible as these gifts may sound, they remain sadly nonexistent. Maybe we need to dream harder. Maybe Santa or the Grinch or that Peanuts kid can find a way to make them real.
Granted, a poop-zapping drone and a kid-ignoring earpiece don't tie in too well with the true meaning of Christmas. But how nice would it be, for once in our adult lives, to get something we actually want.
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Rex Huppke, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune and a noted hypocrisy enthusiast, is filling in for Clarance Thomas. You can email him at rhuppke@tribune.com or follow him on Twitter at @RexHuppke.)
(c) 2014 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
