Skip to Content

20 most worthless pieces of junk: #16 -- Hobby kits

More
Text SizeAAA

Filed under: Extracurriculars

balloon bouquetWhen someone gives you a hobby kit, grit your teeth and look out: Either your initial novelty with the pursuit is going to wear off, or the item itself is bound to wear out. Ideally, both things will happen at the same time.

This cycles back to the most essential quandary of gift giving, that most people give you things that THEY like, but that you probably don't. Still, when I received the balloon-animal kit, I had an open mind (even though the fear of pasty-faced clowns scarred me for life as a kid). "If I get good at this, I could make a tyrannosaurus rex for my preschool daughter," I thought. (She likes dinosaurs more than teddy bears, OK? Her favorite is the diplodocus.)But before I could even get started pumping tubes of air into those twisty, twiggy balloons, the flimsy-as-cardboard pump cracked like a stick of stale gum. This to me demonstrated yet another example of how toys made overseas perform inferior to those made in America just a generation ago. Going back to the store for an exchange seemed useless: How long until the next one broke, too? But least this item lived on in a more mischievous incarnation. The kiddos and I filled the balloons with water and chased each other around the back yard.

As for the pump, it got stashed in a junk drawer, which every house has. You don't just stow useless items there, but naïve hopes: Put something in the junk drawer long enough, and it might just magically repair or regenerate itself. Though if the pump starts working again, I'm checking under my bed for visitations from workmanlike, evil circus clowns. Brrrrrrrr!
Subscribe to Walletpop

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Winter Travel Emergency Kit: Do You Have One?
Winter can be a great time to take a trip but traveling through the cold, ice, and snow can pose a ...
How Many Handbags Does a Woman Really Need?
So we at Luxist clearly love handbags, we feature a new one every day as part of our Handbag of the ...

Charles Feldman
Charles Feldman Filed under: Home, Real Estate, Mortgages

Ohio goes after mortgage servicing firms: lessons you can learn

You have to give it to the attorney general of Ohio. The dude's got ... well ... he's just got 'em. One by one, step by step, he has been going after mortgage servicing companies. These are the ...
Josh Smith
Josh Smith Filed under: Bargains, Shopping, Technology

Dell layoffs lead to price mistakes -- $10 processors and $4,000 mouse

If only the officials at Dell had watched "Office Space" not only would they have known that you always let people go on a Friday and if you do layoff workers you need to be prepared for the fallout ...
Josh Smith
Josh Smith Filed under: Extracurriculars, Technology, Career

Book Review: The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Updated -- 4 reasons it's better

In 2007 Tim Ferriss published a book, originally called Drug Dealing for Fun and Profit, that no publisher would touch. At the insistence of the eventual publisher, he changed the title to The 4-Hour ...
Julia Scott
Julia Scott Filed under: Bargain Babe

New coupons worth $50 on Shortcuts.com

One of the best places to get online coupons is Shortcuts.com and they just reloaded their site with $50 worth of grocery discounts. Some of the coupons include: $1 off Wolfgang Puck soup 60 cents off ...

Headlines from WalletPop Partners