Cake pops

They’re cute, sure. Adorable, in fact.

However.

The Zooey Deschanel of desserts, this twee treat gives me a toothache just thinking about its sweetness. Generally made of boxed (i.e. processed) cake mix and sugar, lots of sugar, these pops are more precious than playful. They are edible craft projects. When a recipe calls for an edible ink pen, the dessert becomes a fondon’t in my cookbook.

All this could perhaps be forgiven if the cake pop actually tasted amazeballs. It doesn’t. Sorry to skewer this treat trend, but I’d rather be knee-deep in a piece of pie.

(photo: bakerella.com)

Bounce houses

Need I say more?

Okay. The love child of an inflatable snow globe and a padded cell, bouncy castles are blow-up germ factories for both sugar-fueled kids and status-seeking parents. It never ends well.

Seeing as I usually got a cardboard box or an old refrigerator to play with as a kid, I’m clearly resentful that all these little princes and princesses get to yuck it up and take jumping on the bed to a escalated, extravagant extreme in a PVC palace that can be seen from space.

Stuffed animals for grown-ups

When Jenny was a wittle gurl, she had a whole plush menagerie, including a stuffed lamb with a bell in his ear that she would prop next to the door when she went to bed. A makeshift alarm, she figured it would alert her to any monsters who might want to intrude on her Shawn Cassidy dreams.

Then she grew up and moved Lambie to the back 40 to make room for the plushies that errant boyfriends thought were a teenage dream. She got two different penguins and even a stuffed Cartman for a 30th birthday present. She repressed the memories of the giant crap-ass gorillas and ponies won at various county fairs and boardwalks. She developed a baseline criterion: If it had been touched by a carny, it went straight into a hazmat bag, not onto her bedspread.

Along with her nickname, Jenny’s stuffed animals are long gone. Call her crazy, but when she hugs something, she wants it to have a pulse. When she spies stuffed animals and squishy doo-dads lined up in someone’s rear window, her pulse quickens and she wants to bean that baby…bad. An animalcontent, she wants to punch the stuffing out of the grown-ups who think it’s cute to obscure their view with lions and tigers and bears, oh Ty. Speaking of which, she's going to go work out her aggression on the only sensible stuffed thing an adult should have: a punching bag.

(photo: makethelist.net)

The Magic 8 Ball

Screw you, Magic 8 Ball, and your “Better not tell you now” coyness. You think you're so superior, telling us all what's what with your terse responses. Would it hurt you to give me an affirmative one of these days? I mean, I do my part. I focus, I shake, I beg, I plead, I stroke your smooth exterior. "Reply hazy try again," "Cannot predict now," and "Don't count on it" may be truthful but would it hurt you to throw me a bone once in a while? Everyone knows that polite white lies are just good form if the truth is going to hurt. You don't see me telling you "My sources say you suck," do you? No, I keep it to myself, because I'm classy that way.

You might as well say "He's just not that into you" or "Poverty is in your future," stab me in the heart with a sharp point of your fickle icosahedral die, and be done with it. Stop prolonging the agony, or better yet, give me an "It is certain" or a simple "YES" every now and then, you smug ball of jackassedness.