Christmas these days is signaled not by the music played in shops and the wreaths hung along lampposts, but by the increasingly heavy load of catalogues that begin arriving in the mail late in October. Pity the poor mailman, having to lug such stuff around. These catalogues give recycling a bad name. Recycling them, after all, is the surest guarantee that more will arrive. Best, late at night, when the pollution police are long since in bed, to burn them at a disagreeable neighbor’s curb.
I have to confess that once in a red moon I do peek into these catalogues, if only to see how mere conspicuous consumption has evolved into wildly ridiculous consumption. A month or so ago, in one of these catalogues I discovered that one could order a home sushi maker. What a splendidly useless and no doubt cumbersome gift, I thought! What a perfect gift for someone one doesn’t especially like! And then it occurred to me to make up a Christmas gift list of useless items for people whose happiness I don’t particularly wish to enhance and whose lives I should like, however slightly, to encumber. Doing so, I would, in my imagination at least, be a reverse or anti-Santa Claus.
That home sushi maker, for example, sounds just right for a man who seems to have everything but surely cannot have it. I speak, of course, of Donald Trump. I wonder if Roger Teeter’s Hang Ups, a contraption that allows one to spend time upside down, thereby, according to Mr. Teeter, relieving back pain, easing stress, increasing flexibility, and building core strength, wouldn’t be just the thing for Vladimir Putin? Surely he could find a place in the Kremlin to store it, and it comes with a five-year guarantee.
What to get for Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad is a tricky question. He’s a natty fellow, and I wonder if J. Peterman’s crushable outback hat wouldn’t bring out a smile on the old boy. I don’t know if he finds much time to read, what with bombing and poisoning his own people, but President Assad might also enjoy a signed copy of Peterman Rides Again. As for North Korea’s supreme leader Kim Jong-un, an Obama plant face will, I think, do nicely.
My Sharper Image catalogue came in today’s mail. On the fourth page I note Pac-Man’s Arcade Party, which includes “13 classic arcade favorites: Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Galaga, Rally X . . . ” The arcade stands just under five feet high and weighs in at 240 pounds. It’s a bit pricey at $2,895.00, but it ships free. A perfect gift, I immediately thought, for Harry Reid, who looks like he could use some cheering up not only in this the yuletide but in every other season. Kick back, Harry, chill, the Pac-Man Arcade Party will be on its way to you.
In the Sharper Image catalogue, an electric tie rack caught my eye. Two people for whom it would surely come in unhandy are Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, two billionaires neither of whom I’ve ever seen wearing a necktie. Maybe each has a tie buried somewhere in his sock drawer. If not, they can use the electric tie rack for hanging hundred-dollar bills on, thus making trips to the ATM machine unnecessary, though it occurs to me that these two men may well keep ATM machines in their master bathrooms.
My list grows: a therapy hair brush for thicker and healthier hair with a built-in scalp massager for Joe Biden; comfy red sneaker slippers from the Bits And Pieces catalogue for Mike Ditka; the ultimate air guitar with ten preset songs for Bernie Sanders; an electric pepper mill for Debbie Wasserman Schultz; a rechargeable hover board for Tom Brokaw; a pinball machine cashholder for Nancy Pelosi; but no sun-lamp, distinctly not, for John Boehner.
I neglected to send a wedding gift to Chelsea Clinton, but I think I can make up for it this Christmas with a few selected gifts from the UncommonGoods catalogue. Surely she can find a place for a two-tiered pistachio server and a homemade gin kit. Foodie dice, offering 186,000 culinary combos, might come in handy when Mom and Dad drop in for dinner to visit with the grandchild. A Row Boat Salad Serving Bowl is another nice touch for the Clinton-Mezvinsky kitchen; and while at it I might toss in a set of Ooma Bowls, so that daughter Charlotte can enjoy her “top snack twosomes separately and without spills.” Fun!
The possibilities for stocking stuffers are not practically but utterly limitless. There are Peterman’s Acme Metropolitan Whistles and prismatic compasses, his and hers silk long underwear, ear and nose hair removers, professional razor stropping kits, shoe deodorizers, electronic return ball putting matts, personalized bobble-heads, and paperback copies of Nothing to Be Frightened Of, Julian Barnes’s book on his fear of death.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
