More Fabulous Gumball Prizes

Today while returning a recently purchased TV at BestBuy (our second return on the same gremlin-plagued brand, which has caused us to switch to a swankier, more expensive brand--oh the pain!), Jackson had to get a gumball prize. He got a necklace with a gilded key charm for 50 cents, which he immediately had to take off because it kept scratching his delicate neck. I keep stuffing all his rejected prizes in my purse where I find them days or weeks later, a bunch of bulbous plastic containers full of junk. Kind of like that TV we returned (twice). Maybe high-end electronics should just plop out of a giant gumball machine. You really don't know what you're getting most of the time.

Enjoy these images of yester-year while I try and figure out how to program my cable remote without a manual. It's a new era and I think gumball prizes should reflect it: miniature remotes, 350-page instruction manuals that barely make sense, audio plug-in devices, customer service reps pressing the "hold" button on the phone, energy-saving light bulbs, 75-page instruction manuals for the energy-saving light bulbs, credit card offers...

Sorry--a little middle-class modern-day angst showing through. Maybe I should read On the Road again or something. The NY Times keeps writing about it. I once saw the manuscript for On the Road at the NY Public Library; one long tissuey roll of paper, spooling out of a really beat-up heavy-metal typewriter. I thought, now there was a writer who was really hopped up on the goofers. Powerful stuff.

Here's your prize: