Let’s get right into it.  Our first useless crap product for this week from the airplane catalog turns out to be more of a pissing product than a crap product.  It’s the Indoor Dog Restroom.  That’s right, it’s a pad that soaks up dog urine so the dog can go in the house rather than outside.  The real trouble starts when you forget to ask your dog if he has to do #1 or #2…. Then it suddenly may become a useful crap item, if you get my meaning.  Mmmhhhh, it that doesn’t stimulate your sense of smell nothing will.  All for only $149.95!

Our next product held in “high” esteem due to its stupidity and uselessness is a chair that can be made so big that when you sit in it you look like a miniature little person like you were shrunken in a Disney movie.  Its purpose is to elevate you at sporting events so you are sure to see all the action.  That is until all the people behind get into a mob mentality and flip your chair over with you in it so that they too can see the action.  That wonderful product allows to get the crap (might it be useless crap?) beaten out of you for only $149.95.

Following that we have the “Healthiest Deep Fryer.”  I’m pretty sure what makes it the healthiest is that it has a price tag of $299.95 allowing the makers to say whatever they want.   Maybe this was made for people in the south that deep fry everything that moves, but from where I stand deep frying is still deep frying  so even the healthiest one is still killing you.

Next we have “The Peaceful Progression Wake up Clock”.  It is so peaceful they don’t even call it an “alarm” clock because that, I’m sure, would be too alarming for the morons that would shell out $99.95 for this clock.  It starts 30 minutes before wake-up by spewing various aromatherapy scents.  Then 15 minutes before wake-up it generates soft nature sounds.  At wake-up time it emits a soft buzzer sound.  By this time you are so relaxed you want to go back to sleep.  Just at that time your wife comes in and yells “Wake-up asshole and go to work.  Your stupid clock is driving me nuts.”  So, actually, one way or another it does actually work.  But still I gotta file it under useless crap.

Lastly, for today, is the “Ultrasonic Barking Dog Deterrent.”  It makes an unpleasant sound when the dog barks that only he can hear and makes him stop barking.  It can be very confusing to the dog because when he hears it in the backyard he asks the cat, “What was that sound?”  The cat, enjoying the fact that he can piss the dog off, replies, “What are you talking about?  I didn’t hear anything.  You’re crazy.”  This kind of thing has driven many dogs to see the pet psychologist.  Anyway, this device is cleverly disguised as a bird house.  So every time a bird tries to walk into the house he tends to knock himself out, again, pleasing the cat to no end.  Actually, this may have been invented by a cat. Also a big winner in this scenario is the burglar who climbs over the fence and the dog won’t bark because this useless crap device has taught him not to.  If you are still interested in this thing it goes for $69.95

Okay, I had a lot of fun bringing you this useless crap but I don’t want to overdo a good thing so if you want to find any more useless crap items you’ll have to pick up your own catalog the next time you are on a plane.

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The catalog folks apparently take pet owners for true suckers of the universe because there are a plethora of pet products in the catalog that truly do fall under the category of useless crap.  In fact, that name might even be a compliment for some of these products.

The first one is a ceramic pet water fountain.  Apparently just your regular water dish is no longer good enough for a dog or cat.  According to this catalog it is important to shell out $80 for this ceramic piece of… you guessed it – useless crap, that essentially attempts to take your pet away from his favorite watering hole, the toilet.  No dog worth his salt will drink out of a sissy water fountain if there is a toilet nearby.  And the funny thing is, or sad depending how you look at it, the toilet doesn’t even need to be flushed for the dog to enjoy it.  And cats are no different no matter how dignified and snobby they give you the impression they are.  If they can reach the water in the toilet they are drinking from it.

It is amazing what they can come up with for sales copy for this product.  “The falling stream of water attracts the pet with the sound of the trickling water, enticing them to drink even more water.” To me that sounds like a recipe for your dog to pee on your carpet.

Next, we have a plastic step stool for smaller dogs or puppies to be able to climb onto your couch, making it easy for your dog to chew up your pillows, scratch holes in the cushions and pee on the couch.  I thought pet owners were looking for ways to keep the pets off the couch.  This is comparable to making new suggestions to Congress on how they can piss off the public even more than they already do.

As we move on, a mere $200 will get you a motorized replica of R2-D2 from Star Wars fame.  As the sales copy states, “it’s sad sounds mimic the original right on down to its occasional bad mood.”  Just what you are looking when you come home from a day of work, especially when your wife and daughter are already simultaneously experiencing PMS.

Lastly, for today, we have video recording sunglasses.  Again, a paltry $200 gets you these sunglasses that allow you to discreetly video tape all that you see.  That is something that will come in handy if you are a spy, which naturally, many people traveling on planes are these days, or if you are walking on a nude beach where taping with a regular recorder may be frowned upon.  Otherwise, not so useful.

That only touches the surface of the useless crap found in the catalog I was looking at.  But if reading about any of these products makes you want to run out and buy a plane ticket to anywhere so you can get a catalog I want a commission.

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Just because some guys feel they have to be creative and pretend they are asleep to make a pass at their wives is no reason for shrinks to say there is something wrong with them.  If they want call it a disease, though, a more appropriate name would be “lack of gettin’ it disorder”. Or if you want to make up a new name you could call it “hornyitis”, which would, of course, be an inflammation of their horniness.

Wanting to have sex is one of the few things that women can accurately predict about men.  So don’t take that away from the poor women who have put up with us men for so long.  And let me speak for all men when I say we are happy to oblige on that point.

I recently read a list of gripes that women had about men.  Among the complaints were:

• that men are not understanding enough
• that men were not sensitive to feelings and needs
• that men are not affectionate enough
• that men don’t communicate enough
• that men don’t express their feelings and thoughts
• and that they don’t pay enough attention to their partners.

In the defense of men let me take up each of these points one at a time.  And really, the facts of our defense are all in the first three paragraphs of this article.  But for purposes of clarity let me break them down.

To say that men are not understanding is clearly a misnomer.  We understand that women have needs for sex too and we don’t want you to have to ask so we are understanding enough to take that burden off of the women.

Next, that men are not sensitive to feelings and needs.  I think that was covered thoroughly already in the last paragraph.

Saying that men are not affectionate enough is obviously wrong.  Let’s just take a look in the Webster’s “Man” dictionary…ah yes, there it is, the definition of affection for men is sex.  (Wow, this is easier than I thought it would be.)

Now saying that men don’t communicate enough is not at all fair.  It’s just that we often prefer to have that physical communication line.  Touch is truly a powerful way to communicate.

To say that men don’t express their feeling and thoughts is simply ridiculous.  For god sake, women, we are telling you we want sex.  How much more expressive about our thoughts and feelings could we be?  The problem all along is that you thought we were deep.  We’re not.  We’re very shallow, actually.

And the last one, that we don’t pay enough attention to our partners.  If we are having sex with you I believe we are paying attention to you (even if sometimes when they are doing it some men are thinking about someone else.  It’s merely a technicality.)

So there you have it.  And as I proof read this article one thing has become very clear to me.  Comedian, Tim Allen, was right all along when he said “men are pigs”.  And you could probably accurately say we have a lot of disorders, but at least we have them with a smile on our faces.

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My nutritionist informed me the other day that I have parasites in my body.  If you are getting the image of a bunch of deadbeats lining up at a welfare pay window inside my body you are probably wrong.  I hope.

She referred to me as the “host” of these parasites.  See, now, this is the very reason I never liked throwing parties.  There is such a mess to clean up afterward.  Actually, she explained it more like my body is comparable to the typical American public (I would have preferred being called more like the Brad Pitt type, without the herd of children though, but, oh well).  The parasites are kind of like the government, with taxes, healthcare with a public option, etc.  The more of these parasites there are the less healthy you will be.  It suddenly became clear.  To clarify, I asked, “So if the head parasite tries to stimulate everything, all he is stimulating is more parasitic growth?”  “Exactly,” she confirmed.  Now I understood.

I’m pretty sure there are parasites with different personalities too, just like people.  For example, if I’m having a bad hair day, then I know the Donald Trump type parasites are really being active.  On a day where I’m feeling old and creaky in the bones my Larry King parasites are acting up.  Yesterday I had people at my door asking for a donation and my Ben Bernake type parasites where waking up and I almost gave everything away.  Luckily I had enough Jack Benny parasites in me to overcome that urge.

This morning, while getting dressed, I could only get my pants half way up my ass and I couldn’t figure out what was going on.  Finally, I realized I had inadvertently activated some male teenage parasites.  This was confirmed when my car keys were missing.

Last night as I was falling asleep and in that in-between stage of sleep and awake I swear I heard a conversation going on.  It started with some guy with a Mexican accent.  “Hey, man, you really stink.”

A guy with a heavy New York accent answered.  “Yeah, I don’t know what happened it was like I got trapped in a sewer or something.”

The Mexican guy said, “No, dumb ass, you were in the colon.  You gotta stay up here in the stomach where it‘s safe and all the good food is.  You get much lower than the colon and you are outta here, man.”

The New York guy said, “Yeah, I was feelin’ kinda flushed down there.”   Badumbump (sound effects added by me.)  Hey, who said parasites can’t have a sense of humor.

Then I heard a conversation between two fat guys.  I didn’t really get all that was said but it was something about going to McDonalds followed by a trip to Dunkin Donuts.  Apparently about two-thirds of these guys are fat, so it’s just like America, really.

Then I heard another guy trying to get a woman into bed.  It was either a French guy, Bill Clinton or John Edwards, I couldn’t tell which.

Anyway, the nutritionist told me there is a solution to all these voices in my head.  So, fortunately, I’ll be able to go back to just having the ringing in my ears.  She sold me some herbal formula, which, when I started taking it I swear I heard a voice with a Clint Eastwood type sound saying, ”Make my day.”

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Through intense scientific research (meaning I saw an article in the newspaper that was located next to the comics) I have discovered information that is likely to make women feel superior to men.  There may be a multitude of reasons for them to feel that way, but this is scientific fact.

It turns out that in the first ten weeks of fetal development all brains are female.  Then, in boys, a huge surge of testosterone hits the brain, killing cells in the communication center and growing them in the sex and aggression center.  This explains why men don’t like to talk about their feelings unless those feelings are penis related and also why we leave the toilet seat up when we go to the bathroom as it allows us to be more aggressive in our return trips as we no longer have to bend over to lift the seat.

Because of the testosterone, the male fetus typically lags three weeks behind the female neurologically at birth.  And according to what I’ve heard many females say the gap widens from there.

On the plus side for us men though, the testosterone poisoning does come in handy later because it helps some coordination neurons develop better which allows us to catch footballs, basketballs, and baseballs more easily.  This is vital to society because if not for those skills there would be no sports on television and then there would be no place for the beer companies to show their commercials.

Testosterone is the thing that makes men and women different.  Women with their greater communication skills like to talk about intimacy, and men, because they have more testosterone, like to be intimate (to be clear here, the male definition of intimacy is having sex.)  Women, when the car breaks down, will say they think they heard the doohickey rattling before it broke.  Men due to their greater testosterone levels, will open the hood of the car and nod knowingly and pretend to fix it before they take the car to a professional to get it fixed.  And lastly, when a woman passes gas it will be a great source of embarrassment, but to a man, again, thanks to testosterone, will turn such an event into uncontrollable laughter and entertainment.

Nature, in its infinite wisdom, develops the female brain very precisely with less variation in how girl’s brains develop, which is why women universally think the dress they are wearing makes their ass look fat.  On the other hand the male brain has many more variables which is why sometimes you get Einstein and sometimes Larry the Cable Guy.

I can almost hear two of these fetal brain cells having a conversation prior to the testosterone attack that turns them male:

First female brain cell:  Let go to lunch and have a nice talk about our feelings.

Second Female brain cell:  That sounds great but I’m not really hungry I just had a testosterone snack.

First cell: Oh, what’s that like?

Second cell:  Well I heard it was good for when you’re feeling bloated, so I thought what harm could it do .

First cell: I heard it make you stupid though.

Second cell:  Really, I never heard….WHOA!  I think it just kicked in, talk about a stimulus act.  I’ll bet Obama didn’t have this kind of stimulus in mind when he came up with economic stimulus.   Bill Clinton and Kennedy were probably thinking this way though.

First cell:  Oh my goodness, what’s happening?

Second cell:  I don’t know, but you suddenly look awful darn hot to me.  How about we skip lunch and go to my place and see what we can cook up there? If you get my meaning.

And there you have it women, we were just like you until the testosterone hit us. So it’s not really our fault at all.

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You’d both hear that stuff come out when he was actually intending some really nasty stuff and you’d both look at each other and say “What!?” (Note: the exclamation point and question mark would not be sounded out in this case.)  You’d both start laughing and walk away friends again.

It kind of works that way with kids sometimes:

1st Kid:  You stupid do-do brain.

2^nd Kid:  Yeah, well  you’re balongo head.

1^st Kid: You’re a kalogtangoagado face.

2^nd Kid:  You’re a boo-boo head.

Then they are overtaken by uncontrollable laughter for no logical reason and they run off and play again, only to repeat the process a few more times in the day.

Maybe adults should just fight like kids do, or better yet, if heads of state would argue like that we could end up with world peace.  Let’s use our imaginations and think of what Hillary Clinton and the dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong-il, would argue like if they did it like kids:

Hillary:  You need to get rid of your stupid-head nuclear weapons.

Kim Jong-il:  Nuh-Uh!

Hillary:  Yuh-huh!

Kim Jong-il:  I can do what I want.

Hillary: Yeah, well you have weird hair.

Kim Jong-il:  Well, you’re a BITCH!  (Oops!  Sorry, I lost track of things there, that’s actually what Bill Clinton would have said to Hillary.  I’ll give Kim another shot at it.)

Kim Jong-il:  Well you wear weird pants suits all the time.

To that, Hillary’s lower lip would start to quiver and after a short pause she would get up and run to the door.  Just before she ran out she would turn and yell at him:

Hillary:  Yeah, well why are all the people in your stupid country named Kim?  Can’t you think of any other names?

Then she’d run out into the hall and bumps into the principal of the United Nations, who would take them both into his office and they work things out.  They would stick their tongues out at each other as they’d leave the office but at least they weren’t fighting anymore.

Okay, that one probably didn’t end up like you thought it would (it didn’t for me either) but nobody got blown up.

So, let’s give this fighting like kids one more go, with President Obama and Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister of Russia, going at it like kids would:

Obama:  Why do act so weird all the time?

Putin:  I don’t, you do, you stupid bogo head.

Obama:  No, you do!

Putin:  No, You do!

Obama:  Wait a minute.  Why are we fighting?  I admire you and your country so much.  I wish my country was more like yours.

Putin:  Hey, thanks dude.  You keep working on it, you’re headed there.

They put their arms around each other and as they are walking off together Putin has another question:

Putin:  Why do people in your country accuse you of being a communist like it’s a bad thing?

Obama:  I KNOW, huh?

They laugh about it together and then run off and play in a pile of other people’s money.

If you’ve followed Obama’s presidency at all that one didn’t surprise you a bit…Yuh-huh!

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One thing that you often see on an airplane is a mother breast feeding her baby.  I have no idea why some people are offended by this beautiful and natural act.  It is also a very effective method for quickly quieting the baby down.  On a plane a crying baby can be very annoying to many.  Personally, I have nothing but admiration for the baby who can cry and immediately get a breast stuffed in his face.  There are many men who would love to bring that strategy to the table.  In fact, many women are often wanting their men to open up more and see their feminine side.  I think if they were rewarded with a breast in their face every time they cried you would see so much of a feminine side in men some of them may start to grow female parts.  But that would defeat the purpose so forget that last part.  But seriously, I do think I feel a tear forming in my eye right now.

Another thing that invariably happens on airplanes is the pilot announcing some landmark, such as the Grand Canyon, on one side of the plane or the other.  This can be a great opportunity to steal food from the person sitting next to you as they crane their neck looking out the window.  Of course, then you have to risk the guy on the other side of you ratting you out… not that anything like that ever happened to me, I’m just saying it’s something that could happen.  What really ticks me off is I would have shared the food with him, but no, he had to tell the guy…it didn’t actually happen, just theoretical, but it could have.

It always amazes me how people on a plane will talk on their cell phones as long as they can until they have to turn them off.  Then as soon as they are allowed to turn them on again they do it with the gusto of a person getting a drink of water when being on the brink of dying of thirst.  Yet, through the whole flight they will never have talked to the person next to them.  (As I write this I realize it’s not particularly funny, but something I happened to observe, sorry, I’ll try harder to make them funny observations.)

Then there is always the guy who tries to stuff an over sized bag into the overhead compartment.   On this trip it was in the middle of the flight, which brought a visit from the flight attendant.  It turned out that he was trying to stuff the kid that was sitting behind him and kicking the back of his seat up there.  Sadly, it was not allowed.

At the end of all flights the flight attendants give you the compulsory “bye-bye” as you leave.  On this trip it just so happened that the flight attendant had big breasts (or so someone pointed out…I hadn’t noticed before that) and coincidentally there was a mother who had been breast feeding on the plane getting off just in front of me.  Frankly, the thought of that beautiful act brought a tear to my eye.  Unfortunately, the attendant was looking at the baby and didn’t notice the sincerity of my tear (which I got by adroitly plucking a hair out of my nose while no one was looking.)  I hate it when sincerity like that gets wasted.

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You’re getting anxious. You start to sweat. It something you know is inevitable and need to confront but, still, you try to avoid it.  It’s dangerous, life threatening even, but the time is now.  “Bonsai,” you scream!

That’s right it’s time to teach your teenager to drive.  In my case it was even worse, a teenage girl.

Oh sure, people will say, “She’s gotta learn sometime.”  My question to that statement is, “WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE IN MY CAR?”

It seems there should be some learning car that beginning drivers could drive.  And, better yet, have it be off in some alternate universe where no one can get hurt, no cars get banged up, and most of all, my nerves don’t get frazzled.

I can hear all the “know-bests” saying, “You have nothing to fear, but fear itself.”  Strangely, death, mutilation, and, worst of all, dented fenders come to mind.

A big fear of any parent teaching their teenager to drive is, “What if they never really learn?”  It is a legitimate concern, after all, someone once taught Donald Trump how to use a comb and look how that turned out.

Next, I tried to teach her to pump gas to which she responded, “Why do I need to learn to do this?  I don’t have money to pay for gas anyway.”  My quick retort was to look into my wallet and start sobbing.

For me, personally, I never worried about all the dirty looks from other drivers, or the beeping horns when my daughter waited to pull out because she could see smog in the air so she knew there had to be a car coming toward her soon, or even the road rage induced frustrations her driving caused.  Actually gunfire may have been a welcome diversion to the constant reminder of how my insurance rates were going to skyrocket when she gets her license.

As we got close to the time she was just about ready for her driver’s test (euphemism for me no longer freaking out when she nearly hits something) we had to address the parallel parking issue.  Why this is so difficult I don’t know.  But from what I’ve seen for myself and from talking to other parents you’d think parallel parking was harder than trying to stop a horny dog from humping your leg when you are wearing a new suit.  Anyway, after we got through that debacle she took her test and passed, proving, once again, that the level of testing in all levels of learning, not just public schools, is constantly being lowered to meet the level of the student.

I guess the next thing to ponder is, are politicians people who were always sleaze balls or did they become sleazy after they got a taste of power?  My answer is a cop out.  There is probably a lot of both.

There are obvious examples for the “always been a sleaze ball” side.  I can just imagine Richard Nixon in first grade and his teacher asked, “Who stole little Johnny’s lunch money?”  I’m absolutely sure Nixon jumped up, arms spread into his victory sign and fingers on both hands doing the same, saying,  “I am not a crook.”

Then there is John Edwards.  His mother tells 6 year old John that they are going to the doctor for his checkup and he tells his mom, “It’s okay mommy I don’t need to go to the doctor.  I just played doctor with MaryBeth a few minutes ago.”

Next up is Bill Clinton and his mother said…wait a minute, this one is just about exactly the same as John Edwards.

Then we have Ted Kennedy, that’s a very similar story too except his has another little twist to it.  After he tells his mom he doesn’t need to go to the doctor he adds, “…and I don’t need to go to church either because after we played doctor then I pretended I was a priest and baptized her by ducking her head in the water.”

Well, I was going to stop with 3 examples but I’m having way too much fun.  Barack Obama’s mother said it was time for him to go to the doctor and he told her he wouldn’t go unless all the other kids in the neighborhood got to go too, and she had to pay for them all.

Of course, there was Dick Cheney who took his friend to the dump to shoot rats with his sling shot.  But since he was the only rat there he still wanted to shoot something so he “accidentally” shot his friend in the face.

On the less evil side of the equation we have George Bush, who wasn’t particularly sleazy as a kid, but he did want to be pushed around in his stroller so he could just go along for the ride until he was just too big for it, which was when he turned 13.  Even then he didn’t want a whole lot of responsibility so he let his uncle tell him what to do all the time and he took credit for it, whether it was good or bad.

Not surprisingly, we have a whole lot more politicians that fall into the first category rather than the second.  Unfortunately, when they are trying to get elected they all tend to do their best Heidi Montag impression, meaning they don’t show their true face, but once they are elected they suddenly show how two faced they can actually be.

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Gone are the days for these former students of cutting classes and drinking beer and eating pizza in the college dormitory.  Now they will be calling in sick to work and staying home and having beer and pizza with a friend.  But the consequences grow more severe now as you move into adulthood because now your parents will be there to nag you about getting to work on time so you don’t get fired, lest you end up living with them forever.

And some of you won’t accept just any job to be employed.  Some of you will hold out for something really good, as long as you know you are able to freeload off of your parents in the meantime.

Some of you will have CEO aspirations.  Wanting to work at an organization like BP or Halliburton where you can make the really big money and have no real responsibility other than the job of spinning a good yarn for shareholders, or the press, or when you have to testify in front of Congress.  Then when the heat really turns on you can retire with a golden parachute and live in the lap of luxury for the rest of your life with nothing to worry about but your conscience (although the genetic makeup of those guys usually doesn’t allow for that anyway.)

Sadly, those jobs are few and far between and are reserved for the kind of guy that has no true ability but was still somehow, through diligent wasting of years of their lives, were able to make it to the top of the food chain in World of Warcraft.

If the idea of giving nothing back to society yet making piles of money still appeals to you, may I recommend a career in law.  It definitely worked for John Edwards and he almost made it to the ultimate position of sleaze, the President of the US, (at least that is what it appears to be for the last several decades.)  But for him there must have been a slight flaw in his training because somehow a sliver of truth slipped out somewhere and, unfortunately, truth and sleaze don’t mix.

Still, some other graduates may be holding onto that hope of hopes that the Nigerian businessman who just sent you an e-mail about helping him to get his fortune into the country for a huge commission is actually legit.  (Trust me, I’ve been waiting for it to happen for about 8 years and it still has not panned out, damn it.  Expect that last one that wrote to me was the daughter of a rich guy…and it really did sounds like she could be telling the truth…aww, never mind.)

But many of you will be able to secure jobs in your chosen field which you will enjoy for the next several years. Then after about 5-10 years you’ll decide to switch professions and start all over again.

Then there will be some of you who become writers and have just enough success to keep you hanging on for a very long time, not allowing your hopes and dreams to get crushed by various naysayers and finally you will start a blog and write the kind of stuff you always wanted to anyway and still have just enough success to keep you hanging on and… I’m sorry, I have to end off now.  I need to go re-read that e-mail from the daughter of the rich Nigerian businessman.

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