Antibacterial, Lettuce Knives for Men

I just want to chime in to the blog-o-sphere and ask who the hell is out there developing new product lines that are completely ridiculous to try to make a buck.

I just saw an add for anti-bacterial glass wipes. The ad emphasized that the wipes shine glass AND kill bacteria. Now, I'm not sure about you, but I don't spend much time licking my bathroom mirror, my windows or my framed photos, so I'm wondering why in God's name would I need to kill the bacteria on any of these surfaces? Aside from the fact that all this anti-bacterial madness is creating a generation of antibody-less, immuno-suppressed kids, what, pray tell, is wrong with good old windex and a paper towel? Or better yet (a trick I learned from my mom) ammonia and a newspaper page?

All this after my last trip to Bed, Bath and Beyond during which I discovered a "lettuce knife." It's a knife meant to cut lettuce in a special way that will keep it fresh. Well, I've got a news flash for the manufactures of said lettuce knife: IT'S FRIGGIN LETTUCE. JUST USE A REGULAR DAMN KNIFE. AND THEN REFIGERATE IT. THAT'S HOW YOU KEEP IT FROM GOING BAD. I hate to break it to the manufacturers of the lettuce knife, but it isn't the cutting that makes lettuce go bad: it's ripping it out of the ground. That's where the problem starts.

And Pepsi just released a diet-coke for men! Don't get me started.

Now, my beloved and I have different perspectives on innovation. I am generally against it (hence my boycotting of facebook, iphones and blueray). But my better half is generally for it: hence his recent purchase of a pasta maker, a salad spinner and a touch screen phone which I cannot, to save my life, figure out how to use.

So I've made a unilateral decision that we as a nation need to put a moratorium on certain areas of innovation, American dream of constant production, consumption and upward mobility be damned. I'd say we can keep innovating in the following areas: medicine, saving the environment, and helping people not starve to death. But I demand that we stop innovating in these areas: cleaning products (who really needs more than bleach, ammonia, soap and baking soda anyway?), kitchen gadgets (my friend's mom, originally from Hong Kong uses a cleaver for all kitchen jobs including peeling small items, killing lobster, and chopping herbs), plastic storage bins (I had to end my subscription to Real Simple magazine because I was overwhelmed by my lack of space for all the plastic storage bins it kept telling me to buy), and office supplies (what's wrong with regular, old, silver paper clips?...actually I did see some rather hilarious paperclips the other day with swearwords on them. But seriously.....).

Once we stop innovating in such stupid areas, we can focus our energies into more important things such as playing badmiton and developing the ultimate low fat ice-cream.