Plenty of y'all clued me into the horrific rip-off that was "500 Dolls for $5". Now share your consumer wisdom regarding other products. What about Sea Monkeys? Are they brine shrimp or little hunks of plastic? What about X-Ray Specs? What do you see? What about those Ronco products -- kitchen gadgets extraordinaire or unmitigated crap?

What about the buckwheat pillow? That's the one I really wanna know about.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

Answers

I have the buckwheat pillow. It works great because before I bought it, I would wake up with the worst stiff neck in the world. So painful that I would be in tears. I finally switched to the World's Most Comfortable Pillow because I got tired of the crunching sound.

I used to always wonder if I drooled in my sleep, would my pillow start to sprout?

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

Shelly, ha! I thought I was the only one who wondered that. My cousin got me one of those buckwheat neck pillows (it's kinda U-shaped) that you can use while sitting on the couch and watching TV. That pillow rocks so hard. I can't speak for the traditional sleeping ones, though I'd think they'd be pretty good -- well, except for the crunching sound.

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2000

See, I was starting to wonder because I don't see them at Wal-Mart anymore.

Drool = sprouting -- HA! Then it could just be your Chia Pillow.

Hey, where's Maggie? We wanna know if she still uses the Rotato!

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2000

I had no idea how many other buckwheat pillow users there were out there! I love mine, but only if I intend to sleep on my back. If I sleep on it on my side I hear the crunching every time I shift my weight. Also it smashes my ear if I lie like that. But otherwise it is absolutely lovely; I'd definitely reccomend it.

Here's a rip off: "sticky paws", that double sided tape you put on your upholstered furniture to keep your cats from scratching. It's pricey and it doesn't work! My kitties figured out how to roll it right on off. Then they play with the little rolled up wads, paying no mind to any stickiness.

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2000

I work with a girl who owns two Sea Monkey, um, "aquariums" (clear plastic case with crazy Sea Monkey paradise illustrated on the back) that she keeps on her desk. They're real brine shrimp, I've seen their little bitty legs pumping! The other day she produced this eye dropper looking thing, and she was squishing air into the tanks. She said her Sea Monkey instructions told her to do this once a week to make her Sea Monkeys happy and dance. As a goldfish owner, I know this is just a way to keep the eight ounces of stagnant water aerated, but it was amazingly cute watching her bubble the water and then stare contentedly at the whirling dervishes of tiny brine. Made me really want to get me some Sea Monkeys. I found them in the office supply store in my neighborhood (it not only has cool stationary, but a whole ripping toy section--if you live in San Francisco, it's the Brown Bag on Fillmore). But it was eight bucks, and I was like "dude, what a rip-off!" I would've paid maybe four.

-- Anonymous, June 15, 2000

The x-ray glasses were the biggest disappointment. In fact everything I ever ordered from the back of a comic book was disappointing. The glasses just made you see double so that you saw kind of a lighter aura around the image. So if you looked at your hand it kind of worked since you'd see a dark finger structure surrounded by lighter hand image, but if you looked at someone's butt you'd just see the dark butt image with the lighter surrounding aura. So sad. But I always wanted to order the submarines they would advertise. Luckily for me they were outrageously expensive ($20!) for a kid.

-- Anonymous, June 19, 2000

Jill, then the sticky things must be working.. they at least distracted the cat from clawing at the couch. :-)

-- Anonymous, June 20, 2000

Maybelline Great Lash. Sucks bad. All the fashion magazines swoon over the stuff! All the makeup artist adore it and I believed the hype. It's cra

-- Anonymous, June 21, 2000

Don't they have an "As Seen on TV" store? I wish there was one near me.

I want the shoe holder thing. Walgreen's is selling it now. My husband really wants that Ronco rotisseri cooker.

The newest thing I want is that spray can that stops leaks instantly. We had a slightly leaky kitchen drain and my husband tried to fix it, which made it worse and neither of us have gotten around to calling a plumber. I'm gonna buy it, dammit.

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2000