"American Science and Surplus"
"Incredible Stuff, Unbelievable Prices!" ($1.00)
Though it bears a cover price of "one buck,"
if you ask them nice, they’ll probably send you one for
free. This ninety-six page, three-color, ne
wsprint
book has two outstanding features: Unusual items that will bug
your eyes and copy writing that will roll you in the aisles.
It’s the best reading since "War and Peace" and a
lot funnier. Rolled up, it fits nicely in the cardboard tube from
a used-up roll of paper towels. Adorn with the ribbon Aunt Effie
put on the socks she gave you last Christmas and voila, the
perfect gift for that weirdo in your life.
Inside "ASSISUP" you’ll find items like the "Digital Suspension Device" - wall hooks shaped like beckoning fingers ($3.50, package of four). "We’re afraid to call them ‘Come Hither Hookers,’" scribes the copywriter. "Genius Glasses," "Mockery for the optically challenged." "Boneless Chickens," "You may have wondered where the boneless chicken breasts in your local supermarket come from. The answer is from boneless chickens… Molded from life, they are shown plucked and how they might appear hanging in the poultry store window. Seeing is believing…" ($8.95).
There are items here that make you stop and actually think. Take "Peelable Paints," for example. You’ll squeeze your brain because you know that you’re going to need it sometime, but for what? This kind of brain cranking is a form of mental calisthenics. It toughens your lobes and kegels your cortex. After studying the ASSISUP, most persons exhibit a ten to fifteen point increase in IQ.
Eyeball items look at you all over the place. There are Eyeball Hacky Sacks ("…if you are into kicking eyes…"), Holo-Eyeball Glasses, Burning Eyeballs, Bouncing Glow Eyeballs ("…another quality eyeball product…").
Check out the departments: Arts and Crafts, Kits:
("Do-it-Yourself Chewing Gum" ($10.95)), Models:
("Grow Your Own Brain"), Books, Magnets: ("Get rid
of Boy Scouts: Glue one to the bottom of their compasses…
Make ‘em earn those
merit badges."), Bottles, Bags and Boxes: ("Dead Bean
Box Society" ($2.50/pkg 24), Lab things: ("Big, Blue
Lab Suits" ($3.00)), Office Supplies, Ready to Wears:
("Pelvis Key rings"), Audio/Video, Teaching Supplies:
("Plastic Skeleton" "You’re not going to blow
money on an actual human skeleton, are you?"), Optics &
Lenses, Military Items: ("Rod Comma Insect"), Tape,
Motors, Materials, Mechanical Stuff: ("Folding Wheel Chock,
lovingly executed in red steel."), Components: (Nearly 30
"Wal
l-Warts" from 2.9 to
48 volts.), Switches, Electrical/Electronic: ("50,000 volt
Tesla Coil" ($199.00 each)), Lamps/Lights: ("Human
Powered Lamp. Convince primitive tribes of your
divinity…") and Tools: ("Yowie Brushes. A perfect
gift for the person you hate."). Pshew! Whoa, Nellie! Do you
realize how far a $5.00 gift certificate would stretch in this
world of the useless, outcast and strange? Why, it’d be a
veritable feast.
This review has actually been written using the Brain Juice Pentm ($6.50). "It contains an equal amount of left and right brains, thereby generating both creative and analytical insights." So, get your own pen and write your own review!
Mail order warehouse: 3605 Howard Street, Skokie, IL 60076
(847) 982-0870, Fax: (800) 934-0722, www.sciplus.com