This week at work I’ve been thinking of all the things I wish I’d invented and decided to do a little research by calling the inventors themselves. I mostly talked to PR people, but I got some juicy trivia here for ya in The Tids:

Chia Pets

According to the owner of these potted delights, Chia Pets are hundreds of years old and were invented by the Mayans, which probably means someone else invented them, he ripped them off, his company got sued, and now they use this lame generic history to thwart crafty journalists from investigating their dirty past. Ooh la la the mystique!

More non-wikipedia Chia trivia: There are only 24 types of Chias in existence but they’re not patented so you and your hilariously ironic pals can go nuts and invent totally original and exciting Chias shaped like people’s privates or the heads of the Jonas Brothers. Edgy!

You can actually get one custom made but you have to order a minimum of 10,000. Pre-death knell TV Land gave their employees a Mr. T Chia. The most popular Chia pet ever sold: Scooby Doo.

The owner is a 76-yr old man named Joseph Pedott. He wouldn’t tell me how many millions they’ve sold, but he did say “tens of millions” and definitely more than just “ten million.” I’m going to give a conservative estimate and say they’ve sold 25 million in the last 30 years. Based on the wholesale price they gave me, the estimated units sold, and adjusting for inflation (I like, totally took math in college!) I came up with a little more than $269 million in total revenue. Dude. They can’t cost more than $3.00 each to produce. Only 28 people work for Chia (not including the overseas factory force), but its mostly run by 4 granddads who toast the tasteless poors of Walgreens from the deck of their 125 ft yacht in Anguilla. That’s not true at all.

Also, the guy who owns Chias also owns this:

The Clapper still uses the same jingle as they did in the 1981 when they were invented.

Other shit I wish I’d invented:

Post Its

Rubik’s Cube

The Happy Massager

This massage therapist hippie from Berkeley or Oakland or some other purple-and-teal soaked Northern California town put a smiley face on a wooden thingy and made $12 million in one year, thanks to Macy’s making it their featured Christmas gift. Now he can do his nude yoga while resting his frank and beans on his $10,000 carpet atop a misty mountain peak in Malibu.

Aviva Yael

www.everythingisannoying.com

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