It was a rough work week. I don’t even want to talk about it. Just trust me, it blew goats.
I am going to get weird goat search terms now. Well, MORE weird goat search terms is more accurate.
Anyway, it was a rough week. I decided to unwind by going on Goop and scrolling through Gwyneth’s gift giving guide. I had some excess frustration, anger, and despair to unload. I wanted to be filled with righteous indignation over the ridiculous and out of touch gift suggestions.
Honestly, I was disappointed. I mean, were there overpriced items? Of course. I would never buy a $220 neck pillow. That’s ridiculous, but not shocking. I was kind of pissed, actually. I had pent up rage to unload, man.
Okay, perhaps the $1500. throw blanket was a bit much. I mean, nothing says “I don’t really know you, but I am obligated to buy you a gift” like a throw blanket. You can get a nice one at Target for under 30 bucks. Still, the expensive throw blanket wasn’t worth more than an eye roll.
I was complaining to Randy that the Goop site wasn’t ridiculous enough so I decided I would make my own. I would create the kind of gift guide I need to see when I am cranky, tired, and need to be indignant over something.
Here’s my own Christmas Goop:
Hostess Gifts
Antique Hand Towels – These 14th century hand towels were woven by woodland fairies from a nearby dimension. The cloth never wrinkles or gets dirty. The intricate embroidered designs (designs may vary) were done by women who used embroidery needles forged in a neighborhood near hell by a needle making artist named Herb. These towels are truly one of a kind welcome gift. Due to the age of these hand towels, there is a possibility of total disintegration before they are delivered to you. Our policy on this is: That sucks really hard. No returns. Price $14,459.99
Hand made soap and bearer bonds – This is a fun gift! The soap contains a treasure of bearer bonds! But who knows what the value is? The lucky recipient will wash their way to a bearer bond worth at least $10,000., but maybe they will be lucky enough to get the quarter of a million dollar bond! Scents include: Organic blood orange, Lavender ‘n’ Rosemary and that scent my housekeeper wears on Fridays. Price $150,000.
Gifts for the Thinker
Levitating reading light – What do we do when we find ourselves unable to sleep long after our spouse has been visited by the sandman? Reading is often relaxing, but how often do we find our spouses annoyed because the reading light glare literally blinds them in their sleep? This gift would be welcomed by the reader on your holiday gift giving list. This reading light, not only levitates to the perfect height and angle for their reading comfort, it also detects the movements of their sleeping spouse and actually dims itself and ducks under the bed. Then, when their spouse asks where the light was coming from, your lucky gift recipient can feign innocence and wait until they drift off again before finishing the chapter. Price: $760,000.00
Albert Einstein’s working brain – You don’t think the government let Einstein’s brain rest just because he died, do you? Hahahaha. Silly, naive consumer. Now, you can have Einstein’s brain for your very own. Want to play checkers? Set up the board and see if you can beat Einstein! Get your daily horoscope and advice on your kid’s science fair project. You will never have to worry about making small talk at parties again! Bring Einstein’s brain with you and you will be the most sought after guest in your social circle! Price: Your immortal soul and the blood of your firstborn
Gifts for the cook
Food Delivery Service – This isn’t your typical “meals ready to cook” service. This service combines modern technology with old world charm. Your food boxes arrive, ready to open. Other than placing plates precisely spaced as defined in the directions, that is literally all you have to do. Open the box. The contents of the box disassembles into pieces the size of a grain of sand. Each granule is equipped with a small explosive. These grains will detonate, giving you and your guests a magical show before reassembling on plates, perfectly cooked and plated. The lingering odor from the fireworks display refreshes your kitchen. Multiple scents are available: Rosemary, honey and sandalwood, Citrus and sage or the scent my housekeeper wears on Fridays. The technology required to cook and assemble food in this manner is bleeding edge. The old world flair is provided by the teeniest bit of dark magic required to hold the process together. Price for one month of meals: $14,000,000.
Pasta Roller/Time Machine – Once you eat pasta you’ve rolled yourself, you will never go back to boxed. The taste is sublime. The lucky recipient of this gift will thank you for years to come even though their carb intake increases enough to shave a few years off their life. They might become reclusive because all their spare time will be spent making and eating pasta. It’s that good! It’s also a time machine. Price: All the tea in China
Gifts for the Lovers
Lingerie that looks sexy while making the wearer feel gorgeous and sultry – Price: one billion dollars
Anti-cock block system: This handy device will be cherished by parents with young children. When the kids are young, it is a rare occasion that the parents get laid. Mostly, this is due to children having the unerring ability to detect when their parents are about to get jiggy with it. Of course, no self respecting child can allow that to happen as they demand entrance to their parent’s bedroom with dire news or a problem, like “Jimmy ate the face off of all the fish in the aquarium” or “I can’t stop farting” . The anti-cock block system creates a soft and nurturing force field between your den of love and your spawn. The system encourages your child to watch educational television and makes them a tasty, yet healthy, snack. This force field lasts for 9.8 minutes (which is more time than you’ll probably need), so you’re going to have to hurry. Price: All your happy memories and your ability to taste chocolate.
Okay, so isn’t that gift guide more entertaining than Goop’s?
As it turns out, I missed a whole section when I first went to the Goop gift guide. There is a tab for “ridiculous” gifts. This, for instance: Dennis Hopper’s personal record collection. It’s not that it costs $150,000.00. It’s that they wax poetic over Dennis Hopper’s decades of record collecting that resulted in just over 100 albums. Fucking really? That’s not a record collection. I mean, technically, it is a record collection, but it’s a lame ass collection.
So, where are your favorite places to shop online? I’ve already spent my Christmas budget, but you know, there’s always a few last minute gifts to buy.
***
So funny that you should write about GP and Goop this week. I watched an interview with her and was very surprised that I (GASP!) . . . kind of like her! Who woulda’ thunk? She actually seems very down to earth with a great sense of humor. Enjoy!
http://www.manrepeller.com/2016/12/gwyneth-paltrow-interview.html
Thank you! I will read it. I will admit that I don’t know much about her, only that her life experiences and my life experiences probably don’t intersect much. haha.
I was watching an old Tonight Show with Johnny Carson (my favorite!) last night and he pulled out a Christmas catalog from some shop that was in Houston/AZ that I never heard of. A department store. He was listing ridiculously priced gifts and making fun of them. One was a pure gold American Express card. Yes, a credit card. For $3,000 (can you imagine would that be now?) What is wrong with people? Who buys these things? And Gwynnie? Well I think she is ridiculous too. Grew up in privilege (although her mom seems so down-to-earth) she must think the world spends money like her. Agh. Fun post Michelle!
Thank you! My husband LOVES Blythe Danner. He finds her very sexy. haha.
GodDAMMIT, I wish I’d written this. It’s motherfucking, transdimensionally PERFECT!
Okay, that is pretty much the best compliment ever. Thank you! 🙂
Aw man, I haven’t started shopping yet and now everything will just seem boring. I did waste too much time on the Hammacher Schlemmer site last night. They offer some really pricey, out-there shit and I gotta wonder about on-line shopping for $40,000+ items. Can you use paypal? Maybe I’ll buy the turtle constellation projector for $35.
HAHAHAH…damn. I didn’t mean to ruin shopping.
Hilarious! I always wonder if anyone buys anything on Goop. I mean, if you can afford that stuff you probably aren’t on her site, right?
I have no idea. I mean, I guess I could afford the 30 dollar plastic water bottle that says Goop on it. But I think it was sold out.
“dims itself and ducks under the bed” Hahafuckinha!! Need that.
I am lucky in that once Randy is sleeping, I mostly don’t disturb him. Except for when I do. Haha.
100 albums? I’ve been seeing that Dennis Hopper story in the news for three weeks and it’s about 100 albums?
The hell with that. I get that in a couple years (yes, I still buy albums).
I had no idea.
yeah..well..it is 110 albums..but still..hardly a collection worth raving over. Certainly not worth 150K
I’m too poor, and apparently too stupid to buy from Goop.
What is: “…curve-defining LBD alternative jumpsuit…”
Is she using big words… or new ones?
I’ll have to stay off Goop! (Funny how that sounds like a Reaganistic drug slogan!)
Trade homemade candy and Zen coloring books…
For Peace on Earth and happy bank statements.
And boy, will it piss off the capitalists.
See? I like that plan. And pissing off the capitalists is always fun.
OK – this is for real – I like to shop on http://greatergood.com/, usually having my money go to the rainforest site. The biggest decision is usually which charity I should support. I kind of fee douchy for not feeding people, or providing support to a family with an autistic kid when I have one myself, or supporting literacy, or veterans or animals. I default to the rainforest because, well, it provides most of the oxygen without which everything else is moot. But I digress (a lot these days). The Greater Goods store has really cute clothes, bags and items which are inexpensive and nice. I have a couple of fleece coats and a hoodie from Nepal and always get complements. I also have a cool backpack with lots of pockets, also from Nepal. Apparently, after the big earthquake, the people who made the clothes asked for orders, not cash. The stuff makes great gifts. I gave a recycled handbag to my mother-in-law and she loved it. Or she said she did. I have a very nice mother-in-law. I reserve my shopping outrage for luxury car commercials where Santa brings a Lexus. Or I did until I found out my brother-in-law designed the house the ad is shot in front of. Now I just watch it and wonder how much CGI they had to do to make it look like there was a foot of snow in Southern California. Cheers!
OMG Thank you!! Last year and the year before I bought bees for people. I also so much enjoy when the Bloggess does her St Barts post where people comment with their wish lists from Amazon for toys or clothes or whatever for their kids. I always feel good about sending stuff out then and I don’t have to hunt down an angel tree or anything.
All kudos to you, my friend.
Apparently, all it needs is 100 million quid to literally save the rainforests, which is out of my price range but that’s what some douche bags spend on their pretentious wedding. Couldn’t the squillionnaires of the world have a whip- round?
I don’t understand why people who have so much don’t do more with it. I don’t understand how people can spend tens of thousands of dollars on a handbag..especially when we are killing our earth and people are starving.
I do like your gift items and the scent your housekeeper wears!
It’s lovely..woodsy, citrusy scent. Well, if I actually had a housekeeper, I imagine that is the scent she would wear. On Fridays.
The difference between your gifts and the ones on Goop is yours seem legitimately worth the price. Most are useful, some are even practical. The Antique Hand Towels, for instance, are a practical way to get some gullible asshole to part with $14,459.99.
And I can’t bring myself to wax poetic about Dennis Hopper’s stacks of wax. I’m just imagining him saying, “A hundred records? Fuck that shit. Compact discs!”
Personally, I want the time machine. I would love a time machine.
I don’t do much Christmas shopping and I avoid the stores (except Lee Valley hardware – omg I could spend a fortune in there).
But…..if I had the money I would totally order those guest towels!
Hahah..I do all my shopping online. I hate the christmas crowds. It’s all people-y.
LMAO! I needed this 🙂
I’m all about the food delivery service. The lingerie is great too. But if I had to give up the ability to taste chocolate for sex, I’d be a nun.
I hope this week is better than last week for you 🙂
Hahah..I was in a car wreck this week (everyone but the cars are fine and it wasn’t my fault) so it’s not been a LOT better. hahaha
One hundred records? Decades? Back when I had a turntable I wore out more records than that. Of course I also didn’t make a bunch of movies while doing so…
Don’t know much about Gwyneth, except that John Oliver gives her a hard time.
Do you suppose the ACBS could be repurposed to keep the cat from walking on my keyboard when I have a comment box open? Wait, chocolate? That’s one of my few remaining vices (along with strawberry soda and frozen burritos), so I guess I’ll just muddle through and delete the long strings of q’s, 3’s, /’s, and ]’s, and turn off the “airplane mode” that she manages to step on every fucking time…
Hope you’re feeling better and the car gets fixed OK.
Yeah..that’s a pitiful record collection. My car isn’t too bad. Needs a new grill and I’m a bit stiff, but I think that will pass in another day or two. Someone turned left in front of me on wet pavement and I t-boned him. Before work. It was a shitty day. Haha.
Did you seethe Fur Oil for pubic hair
http://shop.goop.com/products/fur-oil?variant=31760141510
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA….I didn’t see that one. OMG…that is awesome.
Tweeted! I want the Food Delivery Service. And, I want you to bring it. What a party we would have!
Well…at 14 million dollars, it’s a steal. We’re going to have to wait for technology to catch up or find a real old school witch to make it work. Haha.
I will settle for normal food and a big ol’ bottle of booze. We’d have a blast. 🙂
This week is a douchetwizzle, at best.
At the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia, they have pieces of Einstein’s actual brain on microscope slides. You can go and look at them. I did! It’s in the basement with the collection of things Dr Mutter took out of people’s noses and throats. They also have the world’s largest human colon, because some guy in the 1800s refused to unclench for years on end.
I’m going to go take a nice relaxing poop.
HAHAAH…this is so much what I needed right now. A good laugh. Good luck with your poop. I hope it is everything you dreamed of.
This list is so funny, and such a coincidence that me and Hubby sat up in bed last night looking thru the Telegraph Magazine’s ridiculously over-priced tat for people who have fuck all better to spend their excessive wealth on.
Seriously- if I had billions, I would not buy that shit.
Although I would be tempted by a time machine.
And a force feild – thingy.
And a housekeeper.
Oh, and meals that self-assemble.
And a dictionary that tells me how to spell ‘feild’ correctly.
Phffft…I misspell shit all the time. I knew what you meant.
I wouldn’t buy ridiculous shit if I had billions, either. I would be giving money to people and organizations who help people and I’d travel. I’d stay in nice hotels, though.
Never been on Goop. No need to now that I read your brilliant gift giving guide. My favorites: levitating reading light and the billion dollar lingerie! So funny. Made me chuckle once again in a “you could hear a pin drop” doctor’s waiting room. It was worth the curious stares! Thanks!
Hahahaah! That is awesome. I am glad you liked it. 🙂