• How can you use your car to grill a hamburger?
What 40-dollar item has the sole function of turning itself off?
From terrorizing pets to shitting gold, here are 15 of the most pointless things ever invented.
15 – The Ctrl-Alt-Del Wand • During the heyday of Windows PCs in the
1990s and 2000s, there was an awful lot of “control-alt-delete” pressing.
• This is a tool for hitting those things all at once with one hand.
You know, on the off chance it's easier to reach for a tool instead of just hitting the
keys yourself.
14 – Shoe Umbrellas • The concept of the shoe umbrella makes
sense in theory – people don't want to get their shoes wet.
• There's two major problems with this.
Most of the water that damages a shoe is under the shoe, not over it.
• Also, wouldn't a regular umbrella cover them just fine?
13 – Car Exhaust Grill • For those days when you really, really
want to grill one hamburger, but you also have to drive to work.
• Just stick the burger in your car's exhaust pipe, and it'll be fine.
• Okay, technically, this separates the actual car exhaust from the burger.
But when it comes time to eat, you still have to pull it off the tailpipe.
12 – Self-Turning Ice Cream Cones • Apparently, for some people, turning an
ice cream cone is just entirely too much work.
• Those same people seem to have also overlooked that the whole point of an ice cream cone
is to eat the cone.
• That's much harder to do with plastic.
11 – Diet Water • Does regular water just have too many
calories for you?
• Here's Diet Water, a totally real product sold in Japan.
It's supposed to be just regular water, but infused with vitamins and supplements specifically
for weight loss.
• But...
it's Diet Water.
10 – Goldfish Walker • Sometimes it's good to get your fish out
for some fresh air and exercise.
• Wait, no it's not.
They can't walk, and air kills them.
• That means this is only for people so lonely, they can't even walk around the neighborhood
without their pet fish.
9 – Pet Rock • This barely counts as an “invention.”
There's no actual innovation here, it's literally just a rock.
• But still, somebody came up with the idea to put rocks in boxes and sell them as pets
for four dollars.
And that guy became a millionaire. 8 – Ropeless Jump Rope
• The ropeless jump rope simulates the action of jumping rope, except that there's no rope.
• So at that point you're just hopping around swinging some sticks around.
And the sticks make a jump-rope noise.
• Couldn't you just hop in place and swing your arms around... without dropping 15 bucks
on the sticks?
7 – Bottomless Shoes • Some people care very, very deeply about
being barefoot.
So much so that they invented a way to be barefoot but appear not to be.
• Now when they walk into a “no shirt, no shoes, no service” establishment, they
know they're getting one over on The Man.
6 – Gold Pills • Do you want to shit literal gold?
• Great, that's four hundred dollars well spent.
5 – The Plow Gun • This is a patent dating back to 1862 for
a farming plow with a rifle affixed to the front of it.
• Honestly, it looks silly, but does make some sense in context.
A farmer can't carry a gun with him while he's plowing a field.
• So if, say, a wolf strolls along looking to pick off some livestock, the plow gun gives
him an instant weapon.
• Here's the problem.
The gun is pointing straight forward.
Isn't there usually a horse or some kind of pack animal in front of the plow, helping
to pull it along?
Wouldn't it just shoot that animal instead?
4 – The “Running Board” • The only reasonable explanation for this
invention is that somebody had to drive a dog from place to place, but actually HATED
dogs.
• Luckily for every dog ever, this invention never took off.
3 – Butter Stick • A number of attempts have been made to
simplify the application of butter to things.
• It seems inventors want to cut out knives as the middle man here.
• So the Butter Stick – not to be confused with a stick of butter – lets you just apply
butter to toast as if it were a glue stick to paper.
• It's actually not a bad idea – as long as you're willing to trust butter that works
like a glue stick.
2 – Ear Dryers • After a shower, bath, or day of swimming,
water in the ears is a fact of life.
Most just let it evaporate naturally, but some simply cannot wait for that.
• The silliest thing about ear dryers is that they actually encourage you to dry your
ears with a towel first.
• If you're going to dry them with a towel, then what's the point of using the machine
for it?
1 – Useless Box Kit • This is an item that is least is exactly
what it says it is.
It has no use.
• It's a nice-looking acrylic box with an on/off switch on the top.
When you turn the box on, an arm reaches out of the box and turns itself off.
• That's it.
That's its only function.
And it comes as a kit.
You have to build it yourself.