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)
Inflatable X-Wing: $20
Let’s be honest: This is not your year as far as car ownership is concerned. You’ve got mass transit and walking going for you, but that’s about it—UNTIL NOW! Once the snow starts flying, how sharp will you look cruising into work in an inflatable X-Wing?
“Hey, Jeremy, you’re here early,” your boss will say, “I like that. You’ve got moxie.” No need to tell him (or her!) that your inflatable X-Wing blasted past all the morning traffic faster than Han Solo made the Kessel Run.
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15% ($8,500 to $34,500)
World’s Smallest Camera: $100
Behold the future—today! How in the world they ever figured out how to make a camera this small is beyond me, but it can be yours for only $100! It’ll fit right in your pocket, too. If you can think of any other way to fit a tiny digital camera in your pocket, I’d sure like to hear about it.
Next thing you know, they’ll be squeezing tiny camera senses into flat slabs of plastic and glass that can access the intnernet and make phone calls. Crazy talk, all of it. I suppose those will cost around $100, too, huh? Pffft.
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25% ($34,500 to $83,600)
Vibrating Alarm Clock Pillow: $174
Why wake up to a noisy alarm when you could have a pillow that rattles your very head when it’s time to get up? Or why not have a vibrating alarm clock pillow that also doubles as an audible alarm, too? This does that!
All it takes is six AA batteries to power this ergonomically-shaped specimen of technological wonderment. Look how close the snooze button is, too! It’s right there! You’re actually thinking of buying this, aren’t you? You are.
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28% ($83,600 to $174,400)
Multifunction Kitchen Knife: $1,000
What if I told you that you could buy a state-of-the-art kitchen knife that was also capable of calculating complex math problems and extracting much of the world’s known information from something called “the internet”?
The ultimate convergence device. That’s what this is. They call it “The MacBook Air.” Why? I’m not sure. Looks pretty solid to me. It’s capable of cutting all sorts of fruits and vegetables as its primary function. As far as secondary functions go, it can handle computing tasks and whatnot.
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33% ($174,400 to $379,150)
Lost in Space B9 Robot: $40,545
I know what you’re thinking: “Doug, that looks like a cross between Conky 2000, the Michelin Man, a gumball machine, a lunar lander, Christmas tree ornaments, a fishbowl, a cheese grater, Captain Hook if he were a robot, R2D2, a propane tank, Simon Says, and a Slinky.”
I can’t argue with that. But I can tell you that it’s a giant, fully-licensed version of the “Danger, danger, Will Robinson!” robot from Lost in Space. It measures almost seven feet tall, which means that guy in the photo is actually kind of short. No wonder he looks scared and/or delighted.
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35% ($379,150 and up)
11 Foot Tall iPod Dock: $562,000
“Who’s up for some tunes? Lemme just hop on the ladder and crank up the iPod real quick.” That could be you. “How much? Not too bad. Like half a mil. It was either that or have a few kids. I really like music, though!”
Weight? 870 pounds. Watts? 10,000. This thing is actually so excessive that it pretty much extends beyond being impressive to people—like into the “Who spends half a million dollars on an iPod dock?” realm. Eh, maybe not. The first billion is the hardest, right? After that it’s all 11-foot iPod docks.
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