The Worst Things For Sale

For a few years, we’ve been told that sitting while we do computer work is horrible for our health. We’ve been pushed to buy standing desks, or risers so that we can stand at a regular desk, with no attention being paid until very recently that working while standing is significantly worse than sitting, likely as a result of discomfort and distraction, and may even be worse for your body as well. As you might imagine, the trend towards standing desks is largely due to the manufacturers of standing desks and standing-desk accessories selling them as being healthier than the regular desk you already own and don’t have to buy from them.

Ignoring this, manufacturers are now suggesting that we stand on an unsteady platform as we work standing up at our desks. This one’s more expensive than you’d think, but, really, can you put a price on being distracted, uncomfortable, and less productive?

Control your dog’s bone with your phone.

Customers say: Won’t charge. Won’t connect. Dog won’t play with it. Dog destroyed it.

For a bit shy of two hundred bucks, you can have your dog genetically analyzed, and find, for example (as they show on the box) that your dog is 50.0% Staffordshire Terrier, 23.7% Golden Retriever, 14.5% Australian Cattle Dog, and 11.8% Great Pyrenees. What you would gain from learning the exact racial breakdown of your dog is hard to know, but as a reviewer said, “when people at the dog park ask what kind of dog she is I just whip out my phone and show them her family tree.” We all do things for different reasons, I guess.

The Right Cup claims that impregnating its plastic lip with fragrance will cause you to drink more water, because the scent will trick your brain into thinking you’re not drinking water. Unfortunately, the reviews reveal the fact that this doesn’t actually work in practice.

You might click, and see the bevy of five-star reviews saying “It definitely works,” but this is a read-between-the-lines scenario. Note that all the five-star reviews are glowing, long, and all touch on the manufacturer’s line items. They all specifically say the product has made them quit drinking sugar, that it tastes good, that it makes them drink more water, and that it’s good for children as well as adults. And the majority of the five-star reviews end with a punch like “[Buy] a two pack today and use them for yourself and gift the other one.”

Now, take a trip through the one-star reviews. They’re brief, not full of superlatives, point out the cup is the size of a child’s sippy cup, complain that the cup stinks up their cupboard, doesn’t make water taste like juice, and so on. One of them even points out that using this cup is enough to disprove the idea that a scented cup tricks your brain into thinking it’s not drinking water.

The most tell-tale of the one-stars, though, is a lengthy, crushing review where the customer rats out the seller for offering them a refund if they retract their review, and pastes in the actual email from the seller asking them to do this.

Your Star Wars-themed kitchen is really coming together, now that you’ve got your Star Wars Popcorn Maker and your R2-D2 measuring set. 

I’m not sure what the intended market for this is, because if you believe in Bigfoot, you probably don’t want to shoot one. Then again, people drive around in cars with zombie stickers saying they’re a zombie, and also say they’re going to kill zombies, so I guess there’s room on this planet for everyone, tracing a helix through space, around the sun, towards the perimeter of the universe, into the void.

“Bebeepoo” is not the name I would have picked for a jar of hair ties.