Your Very Own Chimney Sweeping Log!

You know, when I become Queen of the World one of my first decrees will be the abolition of all and sundry holiday gifts that include the word "log" in the title. But until that felicitous day arrives my intolerance is your big gain as I present to you the chance to win your very own "Chimney Sweeping Log"!

<Pointless Rambling Story> This gift holds a special cruel irony for me because my very first day of unemployment I decided to reinvent myself by getting our old Royal Herald antique kitchen cookstove up and running. Nothing like being productive after the humiliating rejection of a layoff, right? Five minutes into the job I cut my right thumb VERY BADLY on some stovepipe and spent the next two hours pouring blood all over my house as I desperately searched for first aid supplies. At one point I was lying in a fetal position by the phone feeling woozy (and I'm not particularly squeamish, so it was pretty bad) and debating whether or not I should call an ambulance (I live out in the middle of nowhere and I was all by myself at the time) but eventually the bleeding stopped. A little super glue and a lot of sterile dressing and tape and I was home free.

Crippled as I was, I was then faced with the daunting task of cleaning my house, which quite literally resembled a crime scene, complete with bloody sneakerprints and random items tossed about. To this day my poor thumb could be used as a pin cushion: I've lost feeling in half of it. Plus a week after this accident my little sister took Mom and her two lovely sisters (I would be one of those) across the country to see a taping of the Ellen DeGeneres show. Naturally you're expected to clap a lot there and believe me, that's very hard to do with a huge giant bandaged thumb. Plus I caught a cold waiting in line to be seated and by the time the taping started I was quite miserably sick. I had to feign happiness (which is too bad 'cuz I really like Ellen's show) when all I really wanted to do was drag myself home and die. But I digress. </Pointless Story>

Oh, wait, I'm supposed to sell this thing, right? Okay, imagine being the envy of your friends when you show them your very own Chimney Sweeping Log! Oh, sure, you could go to the local crap store of your choice and find gazillions of these babies and not have to pay any sort of shipping and handling charges on top of whatever you ultimately bid on this thing. But nothing you find in the store can possibly compare with THIS one, which was actually given to me as a serious holiday gift. Mind you, the jury's still out on whether or not these things actually work (I'm personally inclined to think they do not, but not being an official scientific tester sort of person what do I know?). I DID see on TV once that several states have forced the company that makes them to revise their advertising claims to reflect this tiny little insignificant fact. But if you're fond of traditional holiday kitsch this will fit oh so proudly next to your collection of Clappers and Ch-ch-ch-chia pets.

And unlike those other lesser gifts this particular log comes complete with its very own Certificate of Craptacularity, which should get it burning nicely in your fireplace. It should burn, at least, so it's rather like those wax-and-sawdust fake logs you can also get at the crap store, but with this baby you can at least PRETEND it's cleaning your chimney. Say that about the other logs! Well, I guess you could, I mean, there's no law against it or anything, but if you really believed it you would be even more deluded than I'm presently assuming, and frankly that would scare me.

Being the Martha-Stewart wannabe that I am, I would suggest you have a Log-themed party, where you can show off your CSL to all admirers and serve various log-themed holiday foods, like cheese logs and beef logs. When the initial excitement dies down (somewhere in the first five minutes) you can always light your CSL (in the fireplace, for heaven's sake; I mean, don't be TOTALLY stupid!) and spend the remaining hours watching it burn and marveling to each other about how clean your chimney must be. Hey, it beats watching golf. Just don't stick your face in there to look up the chimney while the log is burning, okay? No matter HOW drunk you are, it's not a good idea. And don't bother inviting me. I'm like, really busy that weekend. No, really, I'd LOVE to, but I just can't drag myself away from my unemployed haze of watching my "stories" on the television. You understand.

This "Chimney Sweeping Log" comes in a box over 11.5" long and 3.75" wide. It weighs a whopping 3.2 lbs, according to the fine print! That's a whole hunka hunka burnin' log!

Mojo's Holiday Craptacular....

"The Gifts that Keep on Being Given"

(dead poinsettia not included)