Newsroom With A View

Who conceived of an alcohol-smuggling device that doubles as a Wonderbra?

I now realize that if I watched morning TV talk shows, I might have seen Kathie Lee Gifford plug it on her show, but until a catalog arrived at the office this week I would not have believed such a thing as the Wine Rack existed. Inside of it are a couple of plastic bags for holding wine, and attached to them is a plastic tube so you can drink your (body-temperature) wine at “the movies, concerts, ball games – anywhere you can imagine,” the catalog says.

We get a lot of mail at the office that is addressed to people who haven’t worked here in many years. Last year there was one addressed to a man who hasn’t worked here since 1988.

Most of it is public-relations materials, but now and then a catalog comes, usually an office-supply catalog.

But this one was more of a lifestyle catalog. What kind of lifestyle it targets is a little hard to figure out. On the one hand, there are a lot of outdoor-living items, such as a mulcher, an electric chainsaw and some outdoor fireplaces. There are some kitchen items, like a pizza oven, a hot dog cooker and an egg cooker. There are things for the serious tailgater, such as an easy-traveling, three-basket deep fryer. There are hunting and fishing items, household storage items, picnic tables and patio heaters.

Then there is the Wine Rack – but that’s not all.

There is a gun for shooting flies. A gun. You load it with table salt, and allegedly when you fire at the fly, the salt crystals speed through the air like so much miniature buckshot.

There is a thing called a Beer Pager, a koozie for the forgetful drinker who keeps misplacing his beer. The koozie has an electronic base, and there is a companion button you keep in your pocket. When you can’t locate your beer, you pull out the button, press it, and the koozie’s base lights up and “unleashes a satisfying burp” so you can locate the beer – “even through walls!”

Don’t have time to go to a barbershop? There’s Robocut, essentially a vacuum cleaner attached to electric hair clippers. Just run it over your scalp and it will both trim your hair and suck up the clippings.

But perhaps my favorite item is the Off-Road Commode. It’s a camouflage toilet seat that attaches to a trailer hitch, which makes a lot of sense for camping. Dig a hole, back up the truck to it and you have an instant latrine.

But be careful. As the catalog notes, “Not for use when vehicle is in motion.”