It’s Friday! Maybe you just got paid. You could use that money for boring stuff like bills, rent, and food, or you could act like a wonderfully impulsive consumer and spend it on any number of products. Here are some ideas to get you started based on your taxable income bracket.
10% ($0 to $8,500)
Angry Birds (Analog Version): $24
All of your friends with “disposable income” keep talking about some game with birds. And you always see them dragging their dumb, disposable-income-spending fingers across the screens of their phones. Oh how you wish you could feel what they’re feeling—if only for a brief moment in time.
Now you, too, can experience the thrill of Angry Birds without being tied to an expensive smartphone or personal computer! Sure, it’s not quite as pocketable as the standard version of Angry Birds but maybe you have a tote bag or something that you could carry yours around in.
Or just keep the shipping box. That’ll be your thing. “Here comes Alan with his Angry Birds in the cardboard box,” your friends will all say. “Should we chip in and get him a phone for his birthday? Oh, we already got him a pair of jean shorts? Okay, forget the phone idea then,” they’ll say.
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15% ($8,500 to $34,500)
Epiphany Massager: $70
You work hard. That much is certain. And at the end of a long day, who’s there to rub your back? You, that’s who. And at your income level, who’s there to guard your possessions? You, that’s who.
Kill two birds with one stone when you purchase this $70 self massager that doubles as a freaky-looking weapon from the future. If a burglar kicks in your door while you’re giving yourself a little shoulder rub, calmly say, “Oh. Good. I’ve been expecting you. It has been foretold by the prophecy. I’ve rejuvenated my shoulder-unit with protein strands. Now we can begin.”
Make sure you say all that while looking sliiightly to the left of the intruder’s head. Just to make it extra creepy.
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25% ($34,500 to $83,600)
Flexible iPad Arm: $99
Oh, the humanity! Must you somehow magically levitate your 1.5-pound tablet—1.33-pound if you’ve got the iPad 2—in the air while you use it?!
You didn’t spend zero years in the military and no meaningful amount of your life working part time to come home to the heavy lifting involved with cruising Facebook for six hours. It’s not fair!
Thankfully, this $99 flexible iPad arm will let you use your tablet without subjecting your muscles to any undue—well, any—strain.
And if you attach the arm to your headboard like the girl in the above photo and find yourself single for any longer than 15 minutes, this entire world has gone completely and certifiably crazy.
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28% ($83,600 to $174,400)
Electric Nose Lift: $146
Nose jobs are so impersonal. And you have to fill out too many forms. And the recovery process takes too long. And the end-result is so drastically different that everyone notices. And you have to find a parking spot at the plastic surgeons’ office. And your appointment is always during rush hour.
There’s got to be a better way!
If only there existed “a beauty gadget that applies gentle electric vibrations from the bottom, side and front.”
I don’t have all the details worked out as far as how it’d specifically work but maybe something like this would do the trick: “While the supports hold your nose in place the buzzing will help shape your nose into just that little bit firmer and higher. All you need is three minutes once a day and you (and everyone else) will soon notice the difference!” Something like that.
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33% ($174,400 to $379,150)
Elliptical Machine Office Desk: $8,000
“How do you find this stuff?” I’m often asked. How do you NOT find this stuff?
This is an $8,000 desk with an elliptical machine that you use as the chair. You’ll get fit in no time! If by “no time” you mean “very slowly.” It’s not just any elliptical machine—no, this is “designed to be pedaled at slower cadences that won’t break one’s concentration (or cause one to break a sweat).”
You can burn up to 4,000 calories in a week, which is nice. You can also be the weirdo in the office who sits on an exercise machine all day. So you’ve got that going for you, too.
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35% ($379,150 and up)
Cell Phone That Doesn’t Do Anything Cool: $129,000
To be fair, this phone actually does do a few cool things. It makes people jealous of your socio-economic status, first and foremost, but it also sports a biometric scanner that you may never use and “a watch-like self-winding mechanism around back that supplements the phone’s battery power.”
There’s also the 18-carat white gold—no platinum?!—mixed with 2,000 diamonds sprinkled about the phone’s nooks and crannies. Signing a two-year service contract doesn’t result in a discount, though, so that’ll be kind of a deal-breaker for anybody who’s on the fence about this one.
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