All The Bits And Pieces

Because it’s almost November, it’s time again for Christmas catalogues to start inundating my mailbox, and of course, my favourite is Bits And Pieces. I don’t know how I got on their mailing list, but every year like clockwork, their random catalogue full of bizarre ‘gifts’ arrives. I’ve done regular features over the years on the strange things that the people at Bits And Pieces believe none of us can live without, like beard baubles, night vision goggles, weener cleaner soap, and screaming flying monkeys, and every year those strange things get topped by even stranger sh*t. So in honour of the advent of the Christmas season as heralded by catalogues, here are the top 5 ‘intriguing gifts for the holidays’ you can buy someone this year:

1) Talk Back Sloth

This ‘hilariously fun gift’ apparently records a message then repeats it back in a cute high-pitched sloth voice. Have these people never MET a sloth? Considering how long it takes a sloth to even move a paw, how long will you have to wait for a sloth to repeat back a complex message? Even “Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii, Keeeeeeeeeeeeennnnnnnnnn. Hooooooooooooowwwwwwww aaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrreeeee yyyyyyyyyyooooooooouuuuuuu?” is going to take up more time than I’ll ever get back.

2) Spider Surprise Money Box

This particular gift is listed under ‘Fun And Games For Kids’ and is described as ‘the perfect place to hide your money or small valuables’. Do you hate your kids? Then surprise them with a terrifyingly large spider when they try to steal from you. Yikes!

3) Motion Activated Toilet Bowl Light

This gadget turns your toilet into a nightlight for $19.99. Or you could just turn on the bathroom light for free. At any rate, the description states that it turns on ‘when it detects movement’, which I’m assuming is a subtle reference to ‘bowel movement’. I DO love the colour coordination though—there are 8 LED colours that you can program, so like yellow for pee, green for ‘I ate asparagus for dinner’, and red for ‘Oh my god, did a rat crawl up your ass and die??!!’

4) Little Digger

WHY ARE HIS PANTS DOWN?

5) Antler Toss Game

This is very reminiscent of Basket Head, another Bits And Pieces game for the office. What kind of workplace do you have where it’s considered appropriate to throw things at your colleagues? Yet the folks at Bits And Pieces encourage harassment and bullying complaints every year with these games designed to ‘shoot hoops at your co-worker’s head’ or force you to engage in reindeer sex games that involve bondage. And the guy that models both of these items? I just feel bad for him, like they trot him out once a year to put some sh*t on his head and act like he’s having fun, but he never really looks like he’s enjoying himself. In fact, the only time he’s ever looked remotely happy is when he’s wearing the umbrella hat because at least then he’s not getting spat on.

Once again, there’s literally nothing here that I would order, except for the T-shirt that says “Admit it…life would be so boring without me.” Am I right?

In other news, my friend da-AL from Happiness Between Tails has turned my guest post about the importance of getting pronouns right into a podcast and you can access it here: https://happinessbetweentails.com/2022/10/27/pronouns-suzanne-craig-whytock-podcast-henna-artist-alka-joshi/

46 thoughts on “All The Bits And Pieces”

  4. Suzanne, I knew when your blog popped up in my feed that I was in for a treat, as your humorous posts never disappoint. I’m reminded of the 1990’s when Spencer’s Gifts was all the rage and my friends would get their catalog in the mail. The theme was the same as you’re describing here in your post; ridiculous gag products that will only be used once, twice at best, laughed about, and then tossed aside. Those where the days when free catalogs would arrive at my friends houses, get rescued from the recycle bin, and brought to school where we would laugh about the products during recess.

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  8. My extended family used to organize a secret Santa which exchanged gag gifts. It was a hoot, especially when the gifts were perfectly appropriate for the receiver, despite being outrageous. I wish I’d known about Bits and Pieces. My grandmother would have loved the umbrella hat. Thanks for the fun, Suzanne. Happy Halloween.

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  9. These days I wouldn’t be surprised to see an Indiegogo funding request for a suction cup dong you stick to your forehead and ask family members to toss pink rings to win. “Asking $24.99 to fund to $60k for tooling (ahem) and manufacturing costs.” (Sorry, we’ll need $10k more, China’s economy is shutting down, so we’ll have to have them made in Mexico.)

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  10. I was all ready to make a lengthy rant about those umbrella hats because how I wore one once and all it did was pour water onto my shoulders which it wasn’t wide enough to cover anyway, but first I listened to the podcast. I enjoyed that so much, especially the readings from early English poetry. Which reminds me, tangentially, that it’s a running joke among my friends and I that Australia–with its words like “billabong” and “jumbuck” isn’t really an English-speaking country. But then English, like all languages, is a very big umbrella and there’s room for everyone under it.

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  15. Ugh funny you should write this, I just got my first one yesterday. I mean it probably came in way sooner but I never check my mail. In my defense, nothing good comes in the mail. 😅 So Walmart sent me a catalog with kids toys for Christmas. I’ll probably let Nikolai flip through it before I dump it into the trashcan

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  16. Still laughing, still rolling on the floor, at least symbolically. Just a bit frightened and confused by the movement detection feature of the toilet bowl night light. Still, it might be better than Tidy Bowl’s latest offering , an automatic bioluminescent agent dispenser triggered by a patented trepidation sensor.

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