By Jim Hagarty
2007
When it comes to Christmas and presents, I’m not sure the kid ever leaves us. We might say we don’t want or need more things around but many of us do. I know there are a lot of alternatives now to the annual gift-giving binge such as donating to worthy causes, etc. This does sound like the sort of thing that could open a few more doors in Heaven but I’m afraid I’m a bit more of a here-and-now type of guy these days. Once a man, twice a child, they say. Maybe I’m heading hack down the scale to that state where instant gratification was a very important consideration on any day’s agenda.
On this note, when you’re out buying me the usual Christmas presents my readers shower me with every year, I want you to keep in mind these few little things that are on my list.
I want that $400 TV remote control that has its own video screen. Menus pop up for all the features you need to manipulate on a TV and you simply touch the screen to make the changes. Mankind has waited many millennia for this thing to appear and I want it. I promise I will never leave the chair from which I watch the old idiot box if you come across with this thing.
I want that $600 robot vacuum cleaner that goes from room to room, completely unattended sucking up dust, dirt, crumbs (along with rings and other items a robot might not recognize as having some value).
Give me my own iPod, of course. The biggest, fattest one they sell. Big enough to hold every episode of Ugly Betty 20 times over. All the songs the Beatles ever recorded. Every photo I own. And all the ones you own.
But I don’t just want the iPod for its own sake. I want it so I can get the 500 iPod accessories on the market: The boombox, the car attachments, etc.
If I can’t have that, and I see no reason why I can’t, I want an MP3 player which I can control using that special wristwatch that’s on the market. So that when I’m jogging down the road listening to some tuneage, I can simply change songs with a tap on my watch.
Life is getting too good. I want one of those toothbrushes that plays music as you brush your teeth. I want an electric boot warmer – the heater with tubes that go down inside your boot. I want one of those special cutters with the sharp blades made for taking apart hard plastic packaging (I looked at one but was baffled. It was encased in hard plastic. How is a person to get the package open to retrieve the package opener?)
Every year, a new kind of windshield wiper comes out. Want it. Wireless headphones. Bring ’em on. A turntable I can hook to my computer so that I can make MP3s out of all my old wax records. The ad says I can do the same with my tapes. Then, instead of not listening to them on my stereo, I can not listen to them on my iPod.
I’d like a little Smart car to save the funeral director time when a transport truck runs over it with me in it. Don’t bother getting a can opener to get me out. Just put a bow on the roof and lower us both down.
Unless, of course, you happen to have the latest can opener in which case, be my guest.
Happy shopping!
