5 Romantic Products Perfect for Ending Relationships
Sometimes in gritty cop dramas, there's an officer who is too deep undercover in some criminal organization. His duplicities, loyalties, and moral code start to blur until there's no way for him to ever get away without some kind of final showdown in which everyone ends up mistrusting one another and a lot of lives are destroyed.
That feels like a pretty apt analogy for doomed relationships.
Long after the love has faded, occasionally two people will begrudgingly stay together, both as a reciprocal punishment for perceived slights accrued over years, and because they're privately afraid they won't remember how to fall asleep without crying first. And even though they're both praying the other will make some kind of irreparable move that will shatter the whole thing, they stay locked in a miserable embrace trying not to deal with the inevitable and hoping one of them lucks out and dies.
Well if you ever find yourself in one of these nightmares, here are five products that are falling all over themselves to act as your relationship's final Reservoir Dogs-style Mexican standoff. Disguised cleverly as declarations of love, they are each shaped and sharpened into tiny, subtle weapons guaranteed to sever ties between two people who just need to fucking end it already. They have to be, because there's no way anyone thought human couples would genuinely enjoy...
The Pizza Hut Big Box Proposal Package
When people fantasize about getting engaged on a snow-capped peak or in some twinkling European city they rarely spend much time thinking about the logistics, like, "What if the other person feels more like a compromise than a companion?" Or "What happens if I get really hungry for some rubbery cheese in the middle of proposing?" Thankfully, Pizza Hut has you covered on both fronts. Still red hot after revolutionizing pizza by giving it corners, they dedicated their entire brain trust to orchestrating the most elaborately depressing wedding proposal money can buy, and of course, shoehorning their mediocre product into the middle of it.
The Big Box Proposal Package was announced in February of last year, costing $10,010. It includes a photographer/videographer, fireworks, a limo ride, flowers, and a Big Box Combo with cinnamon sticks, breadsticks and a one-topping pizza. It also comes with a ring, but the stone is a ruby because if there's anything Pizza Hut is famous for it's setting the bar as low as possible and then excitedly crouching to meet it.
In Pizza Hut's defense, I can sort of understand why they would try to muscle in on engagements. Many of us spent childhood birthdays in Pizza Huts, so it's natural that they would want to franchise the other big events of our lives. But come on Pizza Hut, it's insulting for you to assume your customers are so hooked on filling their faces with watery marinara and soggy bread that you'd take the opportunity to wedge yourself into the most intimate, personal moment they will ever share, thus killing two birds with one (pizza)stone. If only Pizza Hut would plan weddings, too, and christenings, and funerals, we'd all have a lot more free time to do whatever we want, like eat another goddamn pizza.
Sadly, the Big Box Proposal package has been temporarily shelved for the time being and no longer appears on the Pizza Hut website. But with any luck, it will pop up in various cities in the future like a matrimonial McRib because there's no better way to tell your significant other exactly what you think of them than by vowing your eternal commitment over fast food.
Bacon Condoms
I get it, people love bacon. They treat it like a fixated infant treats a blanket, dragging it through every moment of their lives, stuffing it in their mouths and panicking about it in the few moments apart. But the bacon condom is, without a doubt, the most misguided attempt to cash in on society's infatuation with this fat-veined hunk of meat you will ever see.
Let's do a quick test: What is it that you like most about bacon? That it smells and tastes delicious? Well, the inventors of the bacon condom are pretty sure what you like most about bacon is that fact that it looks like an inside-out rectum. This is a latex condom that just looks like bacon -- sort of. Actually it more closely resembles what Slim Goodbody's flayed dick might look like if PBS had the courage to make him anatomically correct.
So ladies, any man who earnestly tries to wear one of these inside of you is either hoping you'll break up with him or he's a serial killer. The easiest way to tell the difference is to let him know you don't like condoms and you'd rather use your headcheese diaphragm instead. If he doesn't back away slowly and throw himself out a window then you need to call the police because he's just waiting for the right opportunity to turn you into a suit.
Edible Anus
Speaking of revolting combinations of body parts and food, the Edible Anus is a Belgian chocolate replica of the only part of your own body that, at its healthiest, can make you deathly ill even from second-hand contact. That's it. What at first seems like it must be a gag gift is actually painstakingly hand crafted by chocolatiers who, apparently, also share a deep and profound appreciation for butt holes. The reason it looks so realistic is because it was produced from a mold of an actual butt, and now it's available for your consumption.
I want to be perfectly clear when I say this: Buttholes are not meant to be consumed. They are toxic cinch sacks that occasionally open to excrete pure poison. There are entire horror films built around the premise of being forced to put your mouth up to a butt.
A chocolate anus is about as romantic as chocolate road kill. It's dangerous, it's ugly, it's confusing and it's goddamn dangerous. Yet the website treats it like their chocolate assholes are single-handedly ending apartheid. They come in milk chocolate, white chocolate, and dark chocolate, prompting them to announce, "We believe the anus range can dissolve cultural boundaries of race, gender, class, and sexual orientation." In other words, these little anuses are making us all better people.
And in case you were thinking about sending these to your significant other but you were hoping for something more permanent, there's also a sterling silver version cast from some stranger's butthole available for $400, which they can use as a paperweight.
A Personalized Erotic Novel
Imagine for a moment how helpless and uncomfortable you'd feel knowing that there was a senior citizen husband and wife duo out there picturing in great detail the way you personally have sex. Now imagine contracting that elderly couple to not only think about it for days, but to commit it to paper so that you can read and re-read their best guess at the lumbering, arrhythmic body slaps you call love.
At yournovel.com, a husband-wife writing team is offering just that. You can pay to have them write an erotic novel about you and your partner nailing each other. Though, if you can afford to pay for the book, you can probably afford a video camera and cut out the creepy old middleman altogether. Of course, some people prefer the narrative apparently, because the website boasts that it can cover ever fantasy imaginable, from historical fiction and vampires to ... golf. In fact, golf must be their top seller because it's featured heavily on their homepage, including a sample book cover of a story called Sandhills Fore-Play. Given the opportunity to fantasize about themselves having sex anywhere, from the surface of a hurtling asteroid to the nest of a pterodactyl, most people apparently choose a pro-shop.
But the real reason I suspect this is a break-up aid instead of a romantic gift is that anyone who has read an erotic novel knows that they're pretty boring when only two characters keep doing each other the whole time. Erotic fiction is only fun if the possibility of sex happening in any direction, with anyone, is constant. So unless Kathy M. Newbern and J.S. Fletcher are taking full artistic license writing about you humping everything from groundskeepers to the Canada geese on the course (which I assume they're not), these novels have to be the most depressing erotic stories ever printed. Surely seeing that even professional writers couldn't save your relationship is enough of an indication that it's time call it quits.
But man, if they are writing erotic novels about real couples and filling the pages with inter-species infidelity, I take back everything I said, because that old couple is awesome and I want a copy of my own book to see all the creatures I sex into submission.
Semen Volumizer
Just as women will sometimes buy underwear for themselves as a sexy gift for their guy, so too can men buy a pill that will make them cum gallons just for their lady. The hilariously named Maxejaxxx is a product specifically designed to increase the volume of semen a man produces for no other reason than aesthetic. The fact that this product sells at all suggests that there's some terrible rumor circulating throughout society that a lady's favorite part of sex is fighting and wincing through the horrifying aftermath.
It's actually hard to think of a product that could focus on a more undesirable aspect of sex. Maybe a tonic that grows pubic hair longer and fuller? An ointment that allows one testicle to droop lower?
Without any logical answers, I'm left to assume that this is actually intended as some sort of cruel surprise for a woman. Maxejaxxx is not supposed to be a sexy product at all, despite how it may be marketed. It is a last-ditch effort for cowards in dying relationships who don't want to be the one to hit the eject button first. It's a passive aggressive way to force all the anger and deep-seated issues to literally blow up in both your faces so that you finally have to address them. I refuse to believe anyone outside of the porn industry has ever used this product and not had an hour-long conversation/argument immediately afterward because Maxejaxxx isn't just a semen volumizer, it's a catharsis in a bottle.
Soren is a senior writer at Cracked. You can follow him on Twitter or Tumblr.
