$19.95

I’ve got this gift-giving thing down.
I’m getting my older brother, the Baconwave.
Just $19.95.
It makes perfect bacon, in the microwave.
It’s a joke, of sorts. Bob lives down in Florida, and has been on this health kick lately. He says he’s given up the Guinness, and the fried Ring Dings. He runs now, in the mornings – and pumps iron when he gets home from work. He looks ten years younger, says he feels great.
I guess I’m being mean.
For Dad, it’s the Forearm Forklift Strap Set, just $19.95.
Dad’s 85, in great shape – and with absolutely no interest, or need, for moving or mowing or doing much of anything, except traveling. I tell him not to, but he sends me his itineraries. I don’t care to know the exact time and location of the good times he is having. I think he does it to irk me.
Not that he ever will, but with the Forearm Forklift Strap Set now - if he wanted, he could move a dresser or a refrigerator all by himself.
Hell, he never likes what I get him anyway. He doesn’t really need anything. I guess it’s a kind of sarcastic gift – if gifts can be sarcastic.
I guess I just have the holiday spirit. Well, maybe not the holiday spirit, but one of the holiday spirits. Grumpy? Sneezy? Doc?
I’m getting Dave, down the street, the Weed Thrasher: mainly because I like the name. It sounds like something you beat the weeds up with: give those nasty dandelions a thrashing.
Just $19.95, too.
Dave has no lawn, or yard, to speak of. He’s got concrete, and mulch, and that faux granite tile that’s suppose to last a thousand years, around his in-ground pool. If a stray leaf wanders onto his property, he pays someone to immediately Hoover it off.
Do you sense a pattern here?
I like to give people useless gifts, especially if the price is right.
Maybe I’m angry because – as a child, I never really got what I wanted. My parents could never get it just right: it was always the wrong brand, or wrong color, or the wrong size. And when that happens you have to smile and, with a super-human effort, stop yourself from turning immediately back to your pile and frantically ripping into what’s left.
All these gifts that I’m considering giving, are items that I’ve seen on TV too: odd items from late night television that I considered buying for myself. Eventually though, I fought off the urge and, instead, bought them for friends and family.
I am also intrigued that everything is $19.95.
I think it’s a conspiracy of some kind.
I get the feeling that they (the same ‘they‘as always) have figured out that $19.95 is the perfect price. It sounds nice to say. It tricks your mouth into mimicking a smile. You can’t say ‘nineteen ninety-five’ without grinning: try it. It’s also a price just high enough to allow you believe that you have a chance of getting something that actually does what it is advertised to do, and just low enough not to care too much if it does not.
It’s the magic number. Repeat after me: just $19.95.
Just $19.95.
Just $19.95.
Just $19.95.
Just $19.95.
Someone told me it’s the As Seen on TV Index.
When the economy is strong, the ASOT Index goes up. Just last Christmas it was at $24.95. Since then though, it’s dropped like a stone.
Whatever it is, it’s working.
If it’s $19.95 I go right for my credit card.
I’m seriously considering getting the Ding King for myself. It’s this little contraption with thumb screws and suction cups that you place over the little dings you get on your car, and just by tightening the thumb screws – the ding pops out.
Just $19.95.
Not that I have a car worth taking the time to make cosmetic repairs to: I mean, the old Camry could benefit from an extended Ding King session, if I could get the sap off it first. But why bother: we don’t have a garage, so if I clean the sap off the car it would soon be covered again. And in a year or two it will be completely encased in sap, like a bug in amber.
I’m thinking about getting Mary a Snuggie.
You guessed it: just $19.95.
It’s just a big blanket, with sleeves.
She’s worried about work, about the economy, about me – so when she gets home she usually just curls up into a ball, on the couch, and passes out until it’s time to go to sleep. With the Snuggie she can be transferred directly from the couch to the bed.
I might get Riddex Plus, too: just $19.95.
I think we have mice in the attic, or the eaves or somewhere in the walls. They sound like they’re skating: pushing a puck in front of them. You just plug in the little Riddex box in any outlet, and the ultrasonic sound waves – they promise, drive the mice away (or distract them long enough to keep them from scoring).
There’s so much more, so many odd, unusual inventions: so many labor saving devices for just $19.95. The Girl Crush Jewelry Maker. The Ultrasonic Jewelry Cleaner. The Blendy Pen. Ambervision. Mighty Putty. Save-A-Blade. The Big City Slider Station? The Auto Vent SPV. Doggy Steps for aged pets. The list just goes on and on.
I think they should offer a mystery gift, filled with a random assortment of five or six of these odd devices, for just $19.95.
Is that possible?
Sure, why not. They don’t really cost $19.95. That’s just the magic number. They could sell them for a buck, or twenty dollars, or $3.99. But they’ve figured out they’ll sell the most if they price them at the magic number.
I might just go down the list and buy everything they have for $19.95. Then, when everything arrives, cover everything up in the cheapest wrapping paper I can find, load it all into the Camry’s sap-encased trunk, and go around town passing out gifts, pretending I’m the As Seen on TV Santa.
It’s not the holiday spirit. But what do you want, for $19.95?