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El Paso Times, Texas, Charlie Edgren column: Catalogs provide all the stuff you don't need
Nov 21, 2009 (El Paso Times - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
Although it's only the middle of November, I know what my mail carrier is getting for Christmas -- a set of muscles that would rival Popeye.
That's because for a couple of weeks now, the poundage of catalogs in the mailbox has been increasing at a geometric rate. Watch the little mail trucks that zip around the neighborhood -- their tires are all flat on the bottoms. That's the extra weight of the catalogs.
Multiply the number of catalogs I get by the number of stops the mail carrier makes, and multiply that by the number of mail carriers ...
Anyhow, catalogs fascinate me because they're visible evidence of all the absolutely unnecessary useless items that are available to people who don't need them, but crave them.
Like me.
One of my latest acquisitions is a flashlight with a couple of hundred LEDs powered by a few D cells. It's so bright it came with a warning not to look directly at the beam.
You can't use it to search for anything living, because although you'll almost certainly locate the quarry, it'll be blind and essentially useless for a while. And that could be a kid or a dog or something.
And the billions of lumens proved quite an irritant to a large spider living and killing innocent buglets on the patio ceiling for most of the summer and fall. After I flashed it (with the light, with the light!) it started dragging a strand of web in my general direction and, as I had never figured out completely whether it had a sense of humor or not, I had to
retreat.
Then I've got a green laser pointer that I have yet to use as a pointer. (Show me anyone who has used a laser pointer for its intended purpose.) I have occasionally tried using the laser to contact the sentient life I know exists in the Helix nebula, but I think all I've accomplished is damaging some satellites in geosynchronous orbit.
And a few neighbors have probably wondered about the bright green dot that occasionally haunts their houses.
The most fun, however, is going to be with the Figi's catalog. Figi's sells various mixtures of sausage, other meats, cheeses, candies, cakes and other goodies.
The latest catalog says on the cover, "Receive 6 free gifts with any order." In fact, that's what it says on the covers of the last five Figi's catalogs I've gotten.
So, I figure if I order one modest gift from each of the five catalogs, and get six free gifts with each order, my Christmas shopping is done. Five paid-for gifts and 30, count 'em, 30 free gifts.
And I might get more Figi's catalogs before Christmas! This is a deal that would make Ebenezer Scrooge smile.
If you're on my gift list and don't like sausage and cheese, or a couple of petits fours, well, just man up and pretend it's a Krugerrand. After all, it's the thought that counts.
One catalog that seemed to feature British stuff had an eye-catcher -- genuine clotted cream for some outlandish price.
Clotted cream? I didn't know anyone did that on purpose. I do that by accident, and it doesn't cost much. All you do is leave the cream out a day or two and you'll have genuine clotted cream. Guaranteed.
I can also make fuzzy cottage cheese, slippery lettuce leaves, gelatinous black bananas, green-spotted dinner rolls and other delicacies should you need any for your holiday festivities.
Charlie Edgren is editorial page editor for the El Paso Times. E-mail: cedgren@elpasotimes.com
To see more of the El Paso Times, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to
http://www.elpasotimes.com. Copyright (c) 2009, El Paso Times, Texas Distributed
by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email
tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax
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