The Simple Life

We get a lot of catalogs in the mail at my house. We like to "send away" for things. It's so much easier than loading up in the minivan for a trip to the mall. You can do the math to figure out if we are increasing or decreasing our carbon footprint; that's not something that's very high on our family agenda most days.

Anyway, since we often shop by catalog, we get A LOT of catalogs. It's like the people who sell things by catalog have a club that gets together on Thursday nights to exchange names of suckers like me. "Hey, we found this one family in Alabama that will buy ANYTHING!" crows the Williams Sonoma rep. "Anything?" replies the Solutions rep. "We'll just see about that!"

This catalog caught my eye, though not necessarily for the "Easter gardens" or "grass hatcheries" or whatever those ridiculous creatures on the cover are. The 10% off is nice, of course, and the "Unconditional Lifetime Guarantee" noted at the bottom certainly allays my concern about leg breakage for these perky critters. (I wonder if that guarantee covers tackiness? I'd regret my purchase if these freakish little things somehow became trendy.)

No, what made me hold onto this catalog for the scan pile was the tagline right under the catalog's title: "Products that make life easier". I've been trying to figure out how froggy, bunny and chick would make my complicated life any easier. Finally, early this morning, it came to me. When I'm trying to create cutesy-but-still-creepy springtime brunch decorations, I won't have to crack the tops off of real eggs anymore after I paint them festive colors and stencil in adorable little faces. I can just use these things instead.

All this leaves me with three questions:

1. I wonder what the Chia Pet people will have to say about all this?

2. Do they sell Don King and Billy Idol models?

3. Have they moved Halloween to April?