The 2007 Holiday Skymall Strategy Guide, Part 7

The folks at Skymall follow a simple marketing strategy: target people when they're weak. Since commercial air travel makes folks fear for their lives, they'll be happy imagining any future on the ground, even one surrounded by the dumbest products on the planet. As part of their probationary restitution, Nick Arizona and P. Jordan Dimebag sat in on Skymall's holiday focus group and produced the following observational log. We hope this seven-part guide aids in facilitating a festive holiday shopping season! Check out the previous guides here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6.

Personal Ultrasonic Cleaner - $44.50

PERSONAL ULTRASONIC JEWELRY CLEANER EVEN CLEANS DENTAL AIDS.

Professional jeweler technology cleans dentures, shaver heads, and jewelry. Optional extra cleaning tanks allow all family members to share the same system. A Frontgate exclusive. (Skymall)

N: There's no way my personal jewels could fit in that.

P: This product will generate a Pavlovian response in jewelers to dump their goods into urinals.

N: Now all your bling can smell like fresh-baked urinal cake.

P: Certainly you're not referring to the Personal Ultrasonic Cleaner's orthodontic retainer. The poor thing just wants to look normal by prom.

N: That's wishful thinking; it'll still look like the 3-way love child of an iron, a George Foreman grill, and a mouse.

P: This is actually the Jewish character from Al-Jazeera's pro-Islamic version of The Brave Little Toaster. It meets its dire end when it mistakes Channukah gelt for rare coins and chokes to death.

N: I hope you can mod this into a tiny deep fryer, because then I could live my dream of taking a dump while frying up a batch of fun-size pizza rolls without burning the flesh off my legs. It would also lend itself nicely to making a single serving of fondue.

P: I wish this thing didn't have a clear cover. I'd just plug it in before girls came over and casually mention that my best jewels were in the wash. As well as every other amenity that my apartment lacks. "I bought some champagne. Oops, my mistake, still getting cleaned. Maybe next time."

N: I'd like to see this washing a load of doll clothes.

P: In the open position, this is a mousetrap for kleptomaniacs. You can see the gory remains of the last victim clogging the filter.

N: Nah, they're just cleaning a Fruit Roll-Up. Aside from necrophiliacs with heavy genital piercing, who really needs their jewelry thoroughly cleaned often enough to warrant buying this?

P: I think it's somewhat callous to neglect proper jewelry hygeine. I'd like to echo their suggestion of different cleaning tanks for each family member -- or maybe you'd prefer a repeat of the DENTAL AIDS epidemic of the late '80s.

N: So this is for AIDS prevention? I could go into a doctor's office and find one filled with syringes? Because if so, I'd be remiss not to buy one. This would be much more convenient than my usual course of post-coital hygiene: thoroughly boiling my penis in a cauldron of brine.

P: Make sure to get an extra tank for whatever family member you just finished with. Unless they're a DENTAL AIDS denier. "What do you mean I have DENTAL AIDS? There's some mistake. Yes, I was sharing jewelry cleaning tanks, but it's not like I was washing a rainbow brooch or a single right earring, I was washing a wedding ring for christsakes."

N: I think they'd sell a lot more of these if they just marketed them differently. "Relax, let go of your glans. Soothe and pamper yourself...with Cockspa!"

P: I don't know if I'd buy something called "Cockspa" if it had a slammable lid. They might also do well to show it in a contemporary bathroom instead of Tutankhamen's.

N: Does the lid lock? I'd be worried about kids trying to clean the goldfish, then arguing that they were trying to polish his gold to a deep lustre. I'd almost feel too guilty to punish them by holding their fingers in there. Almost.

P: The DENTAL AIDS quilt is a moving tribute to the epidemic's victims and doubles as a cleaning rag.