Just a Little Touch Up!

A few months ago I came upon the term “roof rake” in a book I was reading (Think of a Number, if you are interested). I had never heard of one but it was clear from the context that it is a device for scraping snow off your roof. I guess in very snowy areas the danger is that too much snow may cause roof damage. Makes sense.

The recent snows in the Northeast got me to thinking about Agmorion and Siun-Kelan and whether or not they owned such a contraption. It turns out they don’t, so I was curious on how easy it was to get this exotic-sounding device. Pretty easy, it turns out - you can get them through Amazon or Wal-Mart, for instance.

On the Wal-Mart site, you can find the very, very manual Garelik 21’ Snow Roof Rake ($48) in the “Outdoor Power Tools” section. Fine. But here is a screen shot of the items that Wal-Mart says people buy after viewing the roof rake:

Apparently, Wal-Mart shoppers think it is a coin toss whether to use a roof rake or a lawnmower to remove the snow off the top of your house. And there is a one in four chance the typical roof rake shopper will buy a security light or an auger, instead? Focus, people! You’re all over the map, here!

What is more alarming, though, is that a related recommended item is the Bare Blaster Ice Torch. This is a $35 blow torch on a stick that claims to be great for “getting rid of black ice and hard packed snow and ice quickly and easily”. I can see how the roof rake and the Amazing Lawsuit Machine (a.k.a. torch) are related – they both get snow off your house or the area around your house. That’s fine.

However, Agmorion noticed that an “Ultimately Purchased” item was the SnowBrum Auto Snow Pusher, a device for quickly de-snowing your vehicle. This seems to imply that, in one-quarter of the shopper’s minds, they were at an impasse whether they were a) going to simply sweep the snow off their car or b) submit their snow-covered vehicle to an onslaught of hellfire. Not only that, a full six percent of the people wanting to remove snow off their car using a blowtorch ultimately decide to say “Screw it. I am going to convert my toilet to a dual-flush unit instead.” Or maybe they simply set fire to their toilet, which is also a non-traditional way to solve the old “snow on my car” problem.

Man… as I write this sentence, the hilarious “related” and “ultimately purchased” sections of the Wal-Mart sites have been removed, so no screen shot for the paragraph above. That’s too bad… [Editor's note: by the time I published this, the "ultimately purchased" section was back, with better selections...Go figure...] Let’s see what “Also Purchased” items are in the list on the Amazon site when we look for the Bare Blaster Ice Torch, though.

Bare Ground Solutions BB-100 Bare Blaster Snow & Ice Melting Propane Torch, eh? Catchy! Hmm… pretty tame Page One… Let’s see what Page Two has for us… Bingo!

I am picturing a conversation like this:

"Honey! Honey!? Are you there? I’m on the Amazon site now. We have a crummy connection, and it’s hard to hear you – did you say you wanted to get a nightlight for Timmy’s bedroom or burn Timmy’s bedroom to the ground? Both? Ok… What should we get your Aunt Clara for her birthday? A polar what? Just pick something with the word “polar” in it? Ok… I placed the order. See you at home."