Easylife

My wife brought home a free copy of some scurrilous rag or another from the supermarket yesterday and I was just about to head towards the bin with what I believed contained nothing of any value to me, when I discovered how wrong I can be*.  As I lifted the recycle bin lid, what should flutter to the ground but the ‘easylife’ brochure; a full colour extravaganza filled with everything you had absolutely no idea you always needed.  Let me guide you through a little…

My attention was first drawn to a pomegranate concoction accompanied by the most startling diagram of male genitalia I have ever seen.  If mine looked like that, I don’t think that even I would want to touch it, even though, as the ‘blurb’ accompanying it claims, it could lead me to ‘a regained sex life’.  Looking again at the illustration, that would almost certainly not be with another human being.  Apparently ‘a number of men’ have already been helped by it.  Sadly, I will retain my un-enhanced life for now as well as bits and bobs that do not look as if they’ve been run over by an articulated truck.

I could not resist the lure of life enhancement for long, however, when on the very next page I encounter the buckle-less belts that will not only revolutionise my trouser wearing, but also lead to a ‘slimmer, trimmer silhouette into the bargain’.  I could not be more excited if they promised to keep my trousers up too.  Also, on the adjacent page I find an amazing device that will cut out 98% of the sun’s harmful UV rays and ‘protects your hair and its colour from fading’.  It looks a great deal like an umbrella and, as a special bonus, I find that it is indeed rain-proof and able to ‘shrug off summer showers’.  I can’t help but wonder why nobody has thought of it before.

The same must be said for the aerosol spray on the next page that will, it says, repair leaks and make watertight within seconds.  It is, according to the magazine, ‘endorsed by DIY enthusiasts’ and will, in addition to pipes, windows and gutters, also repair roofs and windows: I am surprised that tradespeople across the country have not fought to keep this stuff off the market. 

A scant turn of the page onwards and I encounter ‘the instant portable fence’ – a section of expanding trellis on legs.  It can, it says, be used to keep pets in their place – although it does not say what stops them merely knocking it over or walking around it – and, even better, it can be used indoors or out and, let’s face it, who doesn’t want a section of trellis fence in the house.  Even better, you would be able to position the fence whilst wearing the ‘shoes so comfortable they could be slippers’ which are also suitable for indoor and outdoor wear and are, as far as I can tell, velour slippers.  Be careful though, even in your sturdy, water-repellent soles, that you do not encounter the Stayaway Spike Repellent which promises to humanely keep your pets away from precious plants with ‘hundreds’ of 2cm spikes (the product description helpfully comes with a photograph of a dog staring forlornly at some distant plants) although not, I fear, the vet.

There are bras with front fastening, criss-cross fastening and no fastening; more therapeutic copper than you can shake a stick at, and more miracle ingredients than you’d find in an apothecary’s weekend bag.  There is also a vacuum cleaner for removing the wax from your ears, plasters for skin-tags and a pair of gloves that, as far as I can make out, cure hand pain and fatigue by warming them up and, best of all, we have a ‘glowing solar owl’ that makes your garden a no-go area for pests, as it is a well known fact that all pests are afraid of owl-shaped light-bulbs.

I have barely scratched the surface of everything that is contained within here: I have not, for instance, even mentioned the professional way to clean you dentures, the portable door step, the diabetic socks, nor the self-cleaning toilet brush.  Nor, indeed, the fact that, thank goodness, it is all printed on fully recyclable paper…

*I once believed that no president of the United States of America could possibly be insane.  That’s how wrong I can be.

N.B. I have taken a short break from the Running Diary and The Writer’s Circle, both of which will return when I have regrouped.