The Page of Inventive Disasters- Page 6

I'd like to make the following statement, if I may.
I, Michelle Griffin, do hereby renounce my comment in the  mouse toy  review, in which I declared the mouse toy to have, quote- "the stupidest packaging ever".
It has the second stupidest packaging ever.
Then again, the  Bubble Briefs  packaging was pretty bad... and so was the bug... come to think of it, the  Square Triangle Clips were really stupid too... okay, so maybe it's not the second stupidest packaging ever. It's still pretty stupid.
But I have discovered packaging that makes other stupid packaging seem witty, clever, and well designed. It makes the phrase "paste a desire photo"sound like a Shakespearian sonnet. If stupid packaging had a God, this would be it.

I discovered this product while browsing the shelves of one of those $2 shops. I was about to pass it by, when a phrase on the box caught my attention-

Wondering exactly what 'eat' was, I bought the toy. It wasn't until later that I examined the rest of the box. And that's when I realised that what I had was an inventive disaster of near Biblical proportions.
The first thing I noticed was this helpful little blurb on the back of the box-

That's right! As opposed to fake games! Of course!
But then, the true horror of this monstrosity of a product was revealed.

'Teach children not to eat'! Aha! Now I see the diabolical nature of this so called 'toy'. This is nothing but a ploy to promote anorexia and other eating disorders! And you know who's behind this, don't you? The 'fashion' industry! First they create ugly, ill fitting clothes, made from whaleskin, used catheter bags and spandex, and sell them for $12,000 a pop- and now this! Using a badly made Chinese toy to further their evil rise to power! The conspiracy is exposed! Won't somebody think of the children!?

Ahem.

The toy itself consists of a plastic 'Teriyaki MoBurger' (I'm not sure what a 'MoBurger' is, but I pray to God it has nothing to do with facial hair), plastic fries, a plastic drink cup,  a small tub of Mocha ice cream (see? See!? They're already preparing these children for the java soaked world of fashion elitism! I'm surprised there wasn't a small sachet of cocaine enclosed, too! I... sorry. I get carried away. Won't happen again), and a plastic food tray, complete with traymat. And what a traymat-

Riiiiiiiiight.

The day? Christmas eve. The place? My Aunt and Uncle's house. The event? Pulling Christmas crackers.
Due to some strange genetic defect, I am totally unable to win a cracker pulling contest. I pulled, no lie, twelve Christmas crackers, and didn't win a single time. I blame my complete lack of upper-body (or indeed, any body) strength.
So it was the through the kind beneficence of my sister that I got any prizes at all. So I hold her personally responsible for all you are about to see.
After losing my fifth straight cracker pull, she kindly handed me the shattered remains of the cracker in her hand. 'What have you got?' she asked me.
I finished pulling out the contents.
'Um... a coc'.
'A COCK?'
'Well. Sort of'.

This 'prize' consisted of three plastic thingys, which, coincidentally, also spelled COC.

The aim was to put them together to form a shape which looked remarkably like the Everlasting Gobstopper in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

After 45 minutes of constant cursing, the pieces looked like this-

After a further half an hour, they looked like this-

I didn't even get the satisfaction of being able to mangle the evil little plastic bits, as they sat there, mocking me. The plastic was annoyingly resiliant.
Finally, after another hour or so of cursing, swearing, wrestling, wrenching, and sweating, I finally got it. Hurrah!

Now bleeding profusely from the lacerations on my hands, I attempted to pull another Christmas cracker, lost again, and was rewarded for my pathetic loserliness with this-

Then we open our presents.

The following is a postcard one of my friends gave me following a trip to Romania.

I know my idea of paradise is two dead pigs on the back of a motorcycle.

Remember  'Ouch'? The confection of pain? Well, it seems the makers of 'Ouch' have been branching out in recent years. Here we see their latest offering-

Yes. Ouch- the deoderant. It seems that they weren't satisfied with merely causing internal pain, and have produced this to fill the 'external agony' gap left in the market. I can even picture the advertising campaign-

Ext. - A beach. A bikini clad model walks in slow motion towards the camera.

Voice-over - Sure, you may look hot. But you smell like landfill baking in the summer sun.

Model sniffs underarm, turns interesting shade of green

Buff male model walks over to model, and hands her a can of deoderant

Male model- Try this. (Looks at camera) It's fantastic. (Smiles, teeth do that little starry, glinty thing)

Model applies deoderant to body in long, sultry, sweeping motion

Model- Oh dear God! The pain! What is this stuff? It's burning the flesh from my bones! Argh, the agony! Make it stop! Make it stop!!

Model runs screaming away, her skin peeling from her body

Voice-over - So next time you smell like a train toilet, try 'Ouch' deoderant. It's an experience you'll relive- over and over again.
 

Incidentally, there are five different varieties of 'Ouch'. Each one is named after a Spice Girl. Appropriate, really. I don't know about you, but by the second chorus  of 'Stop', I'm just about ready to rend my own skin.

This next one, while not an inventive disaster, is still pretty funny. It's a clipping I took out of a local newspaper.

It's nice to know that luxurious prison accomodation is still available at any time.