Out of sheer boredom one day, I found myself leafing trough your typical Saturday newspaper advertising flyer, the kind where you spend way too much money because the company’s name and reputation are so hoity-toity. Sure, there are a few things you could “ooh” and “ahh” over, especially if you could spend an average middle class person’s monthly salary on that item.
One of the more expensive items was the “Delonghi Esclusivo Perfecta Digital Super-Automatic” espresso machine. (Say it out loud with an Italian or French accent to get the full effect of the product name.) At a list price of about $2,300, and being “super-automatic”, you’d think the machine would:
- Actually go out and buy the beans at some high-end farmers market
- Roast the beans, and pop them into the machine
- Pour the water into the machine and magically select all the settings for your personal brew
- Bring you the cup of espresso after its brewed
- Wipe the corners of your mouth with an expensive silk napkin after you finish drinking your “super-automatic” espresso.
Being curious about how super-automatic this thing was, I downloaded the user manual, which was a mere twenty-two pages long. The instructions for making a simple espresso are made up of seven steps, ten notes, and uses about nine different illustrations. “How can there be more notes about the steps, than there are steps?” my former technical writer mind screamed at me.
Even serving up a simple cup of hot water required six steps, and used four different illustrations. (Just because the space shuttle technically CAN boil a cup of water, doesn’t mean you SHOULD use the shuttle to do so.) C’mon people, let’s simplify life just a little bit! I would be willing to bet, most people could not tell the taste difference between a cup of espresso made in a stove top espresso pot, and one made with a machine that has the brains and technology of Hal from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. “I’m sorry Dave; I can’t do that for you right now. The AE35 infuser is defective at the moment, and needs descaling.”
From this very same advertising flyer, you could spend in the much more modest range about 25$ for a set of coasters that had LED lights in them. You know, in case you are the type of person who likes to get blitzed in the dark, and need to find your way back to your happy juice. And then, something caught my attention in such a manner that it practically quacked off the page: A vanity mirror with a base that looked like ducks feet. I thought to myself: What the quack!?
One wonders just what type of person would LOVE to have that sitting on their bathroom or makeup counter. Would they be fans of the Ugly Duckling classic? Or perhaps a vain duck hunter, making sure his stubble looks just so before heading out into the forest with his duck-call and shotgun? I know: A were-duck, who never wants to forget the evils they perpetrate on the pond, when they quack-out during a full moon!
Regardless of the type of person attracted to such a duck-footed mirror, I also wondered: Why only duck feet? Why not alligator-footed or even lion-footed vanity mirrors? Overall, the thought of my own face staring back at me from said mirror, with duck feet attached where my shoulders should be, just creeped me out too much to continue coming up with silly things to write. (But, if YOU have anything to add, please reply here!)
>“I’m sorry Dave; I can’t do that for you right now. The AE35 infuser is defective at the >moment, and needs descaling.”
ROTFLMAO!
Yeah, I don’t get the whole espresso machine madness. And duck-footed mirrors? Yeah, hope they didn’t advance-manufacture too many of them.