The Amazing Free Travel Game: A Summer Road-trip Gift Just for You!

Image courtesy of Hammacher-Schlemmer's unawareness that I'm borrowing it.

Is this a photo of the amazing free travel game? No, Silly. It is not. It is the Hammacher-Schlemmer Big Top Calliope! But if we were *playing* the amazing free travel game, I would read you the description of it, and you would have to guess the price. Here's a choice excerpt: "A bass synthesizer provides a tuba sound. In concert, the bandwagon replicates the whimsical tooting, clashing, and sparkle of the past by playing 25 classic march tunes, such as Alexander’s Ragtime Band, Ain’t We Got Fun, and A Tribute To Uncle Sam from a built-in microprocessor. Typically part of a circus’ arrival parade and drawn by miniature pony, goat, or a stout dog . . ." Miniature stout dog not included. Okay, so guess the price. Don't forget: Synthesized tuba sound! Ain't We Got Fun from the built-in microprocessor! Whimsical tooting! I mean, how much *wouldn't* you pay, right? 

If I wanted to, I might give you a clue about the numbers, a la The Price Is Right. "There is only a single digit, which is a multiple of 3," I might say. "The rest are zeros." Got your guess? 

$600?

Nope.

$9,000?

nope.

Give up?

30,000 dollars!

(I have this idea that when you click "Buy," the device you're holding should automatically electrocute you and redistribute your assets among the needy. But that's a side issue.)

Part of what makes it such a great game is that then someone reads you about the Selfie Toaster, which brands bread with a picture of your OWN FACE! And you're like, "I could bite into my own face for breakfast every morning? I don't know. $300,000?" 

We play that everyone who's not giving the clue yells out their guess at the same time. But you could doubtless take turns or play in some other way.

But it's only $69.95!

Make no mistake: I am not (merely) trash-talking Hammacher-Schlemmer! I am earnestly recommending this game, with which we have passed many hours of happy car travel, and I'm specifically recommending that you play in the part of the H-S website, called, "The Unexpected" (aka "Let's try to rid ourselves of some of this pesky cash!") True, you need some sort of device with cellular data to play it. But even as I write that, I'm realizing that you can request a paper catalogue here. I'm thinking you could also play it with other catalogues and websites. And it's totally not Socialist Propaganda. #unlessitis 

Ben (with the rest of us for scale, yukking it up at a funeral, because that's the kind of people we are).

This game is, of course, a Ben invention. And it came only out of his unironic love of all things Hammacher-Schlemmer. But even Alex P. Keaton Ben will admit that a $35,500 Time Machine, with no especial guarantee that you will be able to snatch the camera from your mother's hands and smash it on the ground after she snaps a picture of your two-year-old self sitting on the potty, is a little steep.

Anyways, you're welcome. Happy summer road tripping!

xo