">HomeOwnerNut

The flight from Sacramento to Seattle took just over an hour and a half and I had completed the New York Times crossword (in ink) in about 12 minutes, so I fished through the seat pocket for a magazine. I usually knock the airline magazine out in 20 minutes, so I snagged the Skymall catalog.  You know, the catalog with a dazzling array of golf-club covers and sub-sonic ear lint cleaners. I could easily do a weekly blog on the home furnishings and man tools you’d never buy. By the time the plane touched down in the Northwest, I had already noted the following items to share with you personally. Because I care.

Shower of Power

Back in the day, the slogan was save water, shower with a friend. But in the new millennium, you don’t need chemicals that mess with your neural transmitters to enjoy a cosmic, colorful experience in the shower stall. The Magic Showerhead changes color from blue to red to green every five seconds. That means if you’re eco-conscious, you can time your showers to save water. $49.99.

Zappa Kitty

Back in the day when we showered with a friend and did funny cigarettes, we’d drive kitty crazy by fanning a flashlight beam across the carpet and up the wall. Today, chemical-free adults can deploy a pre-set program that sends the little fur muffin a-scampering into furniture legs with The Lucky Litter FroliCat Bolt Automatic Laser Toy. $19.95.

Zap Yourself

The Sonic Boom will get you out of the sack after a long night watching your kitten chase a laser beam into a bubbling stewpot. The Boom clock generates wake-up tones at 113 decibels. (Doctors say that 85 decibels are at the edge of safety and sanity). Good morning! $34.95.

Zap the Cops

Skymall offers a  Phantom Alert subscription that sends warnings to your smart phone or GPS whenever there are speed cameras, school zones, speed traps, railroad crossings, and red light cameras nearby as identified in its 400,000+ item database. I’m sure you wish you had a subscription when you (fill in the blank) ___?  $29.99 a year.

In America we love idealizing history.  We reenact Civil War battles. We’re willing to append “Ye Olde” to the name of almost any type of store.  We watch the Antiques Road Show with the fervent belief that anything we pick up at a garage sale could be worth millions just because it’s old, even if it’s actually macramé from the 70s (that’s old, right?). We just can’t stop ourselves–anything will do–we even idealize the outhouse. Man, we’ve got a real problem.

You’d be surprised how many things are out there celebrating a stink-hole you can fall into in the dark after having to haul yourself outside in the dead of night. But they are indeed part of our cherished history, so let’s celebrate them.

Making Plans

Seems like you can buy plans to build just about anything, and the outhouse is no exception. After learning about the history of the outhouse and getting “inspired” by seeing pictures of other people’s outhouses at the Outhouses of America Tour website, you can order plans from them for just $24.95. And you can use the plans to build a real working outhouse. I guess it’s cheaper than renovating your bathroom, but some things are worth springing for. Although it might be helpful to keep unwanted house guests from staying too long. Or at all.

I hope the plans are printed on toilet paper.  Nothing could be more appropriate.

Getting Out

Want to bring a little of the outdoors in?  Why stop at flowers, when you can add a lovely outhouse-themed wallpaper border to your rooms? Pre-pasted and peelable, it’s easy to put up and remove, just in case the primitive bathroom theme may not be the right look for your modern kitchen after all.

Cleaning Up

Now, I’m not sure why you’d want to make your bathtub look like an outhouse, but you certainly can with this outhouse shower curtain from Kmart. I wonder if I’m the only person who can see the danger of making the place you go to get clean look like a place you go for our less clean activities.  Seems like that could lead to confusion for certain people.