Odd products

 Also known as egg-white (shell not included)

 Because bacon is so hard to cook

 Where Hansel and Gretel went at Easter?

 Just like an arm. Only more plastic.

As eaten by Sam Shepard

Odd Products

 Forget hints of chocolate. This is chocolate-flavoured wine.

 Who wants that nasty packet ketchup when you can have the fancy stuff?

 Seeing has never been so safe.

 What do you mean, dogs don't need Uggs?

With this "total training system" you can jump on AND off!

Odd Products

Dog shoes: because paws weren't made to run on the ground

 Probably spinning in his grave at this juxtaposition



Those poor socks

Odd Products

 

 Who, mi?


As drunk by Lawrence of Arabica


It's win or get eaten, I guess

Odd Products

Wash before use?

 I wonder if it includes the ferret seeds too.

Don't want it tasting too venisony, do we?

Just what I've always wanted!

Lost in Translation

I had a rather Kafkaesque experience this afternoon at Staples, a stationery superstore.

Having hunted in vain for rulers throughout the shop, I went up to a sales assistant and enquired where I might find one.

"Roo-ler?" the woman asked, rolling the R as if to emphasise my bizarre request.
"Ruler", I confirmed.
"Roo-ler?" she echoed with a look of complete incredulity.
"Ruler", I repeated.
"Roo-ler?" she asked a third time.
"Yes, ruler!" I said, somewhat exasperated.
"Oh," she replied. "Aisle 11 on the right."

What luck we were speaking the same language. I can't imagine what might have happened if we hadn't been able to understand one other.

Signs

(Cherchez l'erreur)

Odd Products

Yes, it really is a purple-and-blue cake

Honey, where did you put the glitter-duck Xmas decorations?

Prevents the neighbours' kids using your pool, I guess

(This was sold in a sports equipment shop)

Duped

Two days ago, I went to CVS, a nationwide chain of chemists (aka "pharmacies"), to get a very specific brand of cream: Aveeno. When I got there, I found what looked like two different types of Aveeno on the shelves, so I compared them and finally decided on one. Back home, my wife asked me, "Why did you decide to get the CVS-brand cream instead?"

I hadn't.

Returning to CVS to get the cream I had really wanted, I realised why I had bought the wrong one: I had fallen prey to the kind of consumer switcheroo that retail chains love to provoke. However, rather than the typical tactic of merely placing store-brand products in more prominent positions than third-party ones, CVS has taken a far more insidious approach: it systematically mimics the colour scheme and packaging of the most popular name-brand goods and then places its own products directly next to these.

As a result, the tube of CVS cream was in a white tube exactly the same size and with exactly the same shade of green writing as my Aveeno. Further along the shelf was a larger bottle of Aveeno with a dark green lid. The CVS-brand bottle of the identical size also had a dark green lid - and stood adjacent to the Aveeno bottle. Looking down, I noticed a different brand of moisturising cream with a blue-and-gold logo and a distinctive gold pump-dispenser. The CVS-brand cream right next to it was also blue-and-gold with a gold pump-dispenser.

Amazed at my discovery, I took a step back, and as I scanned along the entire aisle, I noticed that all the products on sale were deliberately arranged in pairs - each one a "real" product and its corresponding CVS "fake", like those blatantly forged Chinese "Nicke" T-shirts and "Adidash" trainers. And whatever packaging the brand-name products came in, whether bottle, tube or jar, CVS had created and stocked a virtually identical equivalent.

Look at the picture below, which I felt forced to take in order to document my flabbergastedness:


As you can see, the only visual difference between the brand-name products and the CVS ones is that the latter have a circular CVS logo - although this is always in the relevant colour scheme of the imitated brand-name product.

Americans justifiably always pride themselves in having a choice. This is not about choice, but a deliberate attempt to fool customers. Shame on you, CVS!

Odd Products

Rice: a "food alternative"

Wild Bra Chase

Mrs Newbie owes me big-time.

The other day I mentioned that I would be passing her favourite mall later that morning, and unwisely asked if she needed anything. "Yes, please," she replied, coming down the stairs and thrusting something soft into my hand. "Can you go to Macy's and get me two of these, one in white and one in black?"

I looked down at the small object in my hand. It was a beige bra.

Now I'm not a macho kind of guy. I've probably changed as many nappies as my wife (mostly without gagging too), and was recently complemented on my ability to tie my daughter's hair in a ponytail. But women's underwear is something different entirely. Although I don't mind admitting I've undone and removed my fair share for partners over the years, I've never actually bought any myself. The prospect therefore filled me with a certain dread.

Having reached and parked at the mall, my first problem was how to transport the object in question. I couldn't very well stuff it in my trouser pocket or walk around casually holding it my hand, so I emptied some shopping out of a Target bag in the back of my car, and stuffed the bra in there. At least that way I wouldn't draw too much attention to myself. "Here I go," I said, pulling up my man-pants.

After a great deal of searching around Macy's (are these stores designed to baffle men?), I finally found the lingerie department, where I decided against rifling through the racks of women's breast supports like a pervert, opting instead for a more inconspicuous approach: timidly asking an assistant for help.

"I'm sorry," the assistant said rather too loudly for my liking. "We don't sell that brand of bra. That's a Saks label."

So I stowed the bra away again in my Target bag, summoned up some courage for a second attempt, and headed over to the swanky Saks Fifth Avenue store on the far side of the mall. There, in an even more well-concealed nook of the shop, I tracked down their "intimate apparel" department, where a tall, smartly-dressed lady ignored my embarrassed look as I repeated my request and extricated the flesh-coloured undergarment from the Target bag.

After a cursory examination of the bra's label, she said, "I'm terribly sorry, sir. This isn't one of ours. But I'm pretty certain they have it at Nordstrom. Let me give them a call." And without waiting for my approval, she picked up the phone, dialled a number that she clearly knew off by heart, and spoke to her counterpart at Nordstrom.

"Hi Joanne, this is Sara Jane at Saks. I have a gentleman here who's looking for a size medium Luxuria bra in white and in black. Do you have them in stock? You do? Wonderful!" She then turned back to me, brazenly asked for my first name (as only Americans can do), relayed it to her colleague, explained where I had to go, and told me to ask for Joanne. But before hanging up, she said, "By the way, would you also like it nude?"

"Pardon?" I sputtered.
"Joanne wants to know if you'd also like it nude," she repeated with a completely straight face.

This was an optional service I definitely had not expected. Envisioning the prospect of a naked Joanne handing me skimpy undies, I cursed myself for not having bought any before, and was already planning my next shopping spree when the assistant's voice woke me from my reverie.

"Sir, I said, 'Do you also want it in nude: the same colour as the one you already have?'" Kicking myself at my clearly testosterone-fuelled naivety, I apologised for my momentary absentmindedness and shook my head, before heading over to Nordstrom, where a fully-clothed Joanne sold me a white and a black bra, which she delicately folded in paper before placing them in a square, white Nordstrom bag with string handles.

"May I?" Joanne said, gently but firmly taking the plastic Target bag from me and wrapping my wife's bra in with the other two. "You don't need this, do you?" she said, throwing the Target bag in a bin as if it were a soiled nappy.

"No," I lied, hurrying out of the store.

Air Conditioning

Air conditioning is another of those American inventions that was a great idea originally, but - like driving and ice in drinks - has been taken to the logical extreme and is thus no longer so great.

If you live in a country in which it can be unbearably hot or unbearably humid and occasionally both, managing the ambient temperature is a shrewd move. It can, for instance, be wonderfully refreshing to go into a cool house when it's baking outside, and when we visited New York last year during a heatwave (the timing was purely coincidental and unintentional), just passing by an open shop doorway gave us renewed energy to pursue our exploration of this fabulous city.

Unfortunately, as mentioned in my preamble, you can get too much of a good thing - quite apart from the extra electricity this consumes (don't get me started on that one). Duly accustomed to such conditioning of their air, retailers, companies, restaurateurs and even private individuals routinely turn the temperature in their shops, offices, eating establishments and homes so low that it is positively unpleasant.

On a recent holiday (sorry: vacation), whenever we entered a hotel room, our first move after dropping our luggage would invariably be to sprint across to the air conditioning unit and switch it off, praying we wouldn't turn into an ice statue along the way.

For similar reasons, Mrs Newbie always has to take a jumper or jacket to work, where the temperature is typically 17°C, though often lower. The same is true in cinemas, concert halls, bars, hospitals, indeed any space that is enclosed.

Perhaps this explains why so many Americans have developed a thermally insulating layer of blubber. There's no other way to survive a trip to the mall without donning full Antarctic all-weather gear.

Fight For Your Rights

As I discovered this morning thanks to that tremendous invention, the Internet, the source of a wondrous array of facts, half-truths and the merely fanciful (not necessarily in that order of magnitude), America is one of only 14 countries worldwide in which it is illegal to buy and consume alcohol under the age of 21. Whatever the pros and cons of this, the law is the law, and deserves to be upheld.

Without revealing too much about myself, it is fair to say that I am in my mid-40s, and although I like to think I don't look my age, I have had independent confirmation from several third parties – Mrs Newbie included – that I could not pass for 20.

I have therefore been irked (yes, irked, no less) for some considerable time that I am required to prove my age whenever I shop at my local Kroger supermarket. A sticker by the cash register, which some similarly senescent person has clearly tried to peel off in their annoyance, declares "If you are under 40, we must ask for ID". Cashiers even have to enter your date of birth in their till in order to authorise any attempted purchases of alcohol.

Time after time, I resolved to resist this blatant overcautiousness on Kroger's part, and time after time I meekly pulled out my driver's licence, only to kick myself afterwards (metaphorically, I hasten to add) for my repeated temerity.

So annoyed was I by this flagrant injustice that I hatched a cunning plan: on a day when my children had wound me up to near breaking point and Mrs Newbie had failed to see my side of the story, I would charge into Kroger, grab some beer and defend my Congress-given right. I would make a fuss, demand to see the manager and win elderly people across America back the prerogative to go into a store armed only with some crumpled dollar bills and declare, "I wish to procure sundry libations" (or whatever the local equivalent thereof may be).

Although all is well in the house of Newbie and the Newblets have for the most part been their darling selves, I resolved this week that the time had finally come. So together with the kids (brought along for defensive purposes only), I drove over to Kroger, picked up a six-pack of Mike's Hard Lemonade, filled up a shopping cart with suitable alibi groceries to cast aside angrily should my demands remain unmet, and headed for the meanest-looking cashier in the store.

Trembling with anticipation and pumped with adrenaline, I thought, "This is my date with Destiny. Today is the day that will change America. Henceforth, baby boomers throughout this great nation will no longer live in fear, but be able to purchase alcoholic beverages unchallenged once more".

With my heart thumping in my throat, I unpacked my cart, brazenly placing the Mike's at the very front, and looked the cashier straight in the eye.

"Do you have a Kroger card?" he asked. And that was it.

A new sticker by the till read: "If you are under 27, please be prepared to show your ID".

-----------------

Postscript

Less than a week after writing this - on the first day in living memory when, through a chain of coincidences, I did not have my driver's licence on me - I was "carded " at Kroger in spite of the new sticker, which I pointed to (to no avail). Duly summoned, the store manager said, "I'm sure that'll be OK." And it was.

Odd Products

So it tastes of sugar, right?

Flick knives?


For the assassin in your family


Almost

Odd Products

Shapes them just like real hands do!

Tap water - in a bottle

A cleaning scalp?

Bought by the man who has everything

A remote control for Big Foot

Barbie NY, London and Paris