SkyMall Forever....

Jasper got his first taste of SkyMall on a flight from San Francisco to New York a couple of years ago. SkyMall is not something we have in Germany (as it is somehow very, very American in the wackiest sense of the word) nor do they have them on international flights though, believe me, we could use the comic relief. Fifteen hours of flight time with two young children isn't exactly something you can describe as "pleasant and relaxing"...

Anyway, on this very full, very cramped Jet Blue flight to New York I found a copy of SkyMall and was instantly excited.

"SkyMall!" I said.
"What's that?" Jasper asked.

For a moment it seemed ludicrous that someone hadn't heard of the utterly useless and strange phenomena that is SkyMall but then I remembered: Oh yeah, he's German. I took him on a tour of some of the classics like the hot dog cooker:


Some of the strange pet products like the pet viewing pod:


The renewable feeder so you can leave fluffy at home when you take off for six months:

And the handy can of Poop Freeze (which shockingly only got a rating of two and half out of six stars on their website...):


SkyMall, of course, also has a lot of great products for the garden, like this decorative Sasquatch:


Or this grave-escaping zombie for that Halloween-feeling all year long:

Still, Jasper's absolute favorite was the steak brander, ordered with your own initials:


When we saw this we both started cracking up. "Is this for real?" Jasper asked. I assured him that it was. Or at least I was pretty sure. Everyone knows SkyMall but I've yet to meet someone who has actually ordered something from them. Perhaps it is actually just a hoax, a kind of "The Onion" of catalogs?

This morning I heard a piece on NPR about SkyMall which basically summed up that yes, it does really exist and yes, everyone knows about it (and finds it hilarious) but no, hardly anyone has ever actually ordered anything, or at least not anyone who listens to NPR.

My advice? Make this Christmas one to remember. Go to SkyMall right now and do some holiday shopping, perhaps picking up this lovely conversation piece for your mother-in-law or your second cousin:

Trust me, they'll thank you for it. ;)