As a person of modest means I don’t often have the ability or even the inclination to splurge on frivolous purchases. This, along with my general distaste for American consumerism, tends to make me critical of people who spend money on what I consider to be ridiculous and unnecessary things. But today in Whole Foods Market I encountered something that raises the bar on ridiculous products.
Called “Ice Rocks”, it is spring water packaged in soft plastic packaging that looks like an ice tray, with perforations to separate each individual cube of water. So, you buy this box of water, you put it in the freezer, you take it out, separate the number of cubes you want, unwrap them individually, then put them wherever. Just in case the audacity of this product makes it difficult for you to fathom, what I am saying is that some company has put spring water into individually wrapped packages for you to freeze into ice cubes. They have made more complicated one of the easiest things in the world to do, and are charging you five times more money to do so. How much does this brilliant little item cost? About five dollars.
FIVE DOLLARS.
You can buy a gallon of spring water for about a dollar, pour it into an icetray, which also costs a dollar or less (and lasts forever) and then put it in the freezer for the same effect. So what convenience does this product provide that justifies its existence, let alone the hefty price tag? Well, it saves you all that excess time of opening a gallon of water and pouring it into an ice tray, of course! Nevermind the time it takes to separate and individually open the ice cubes, though. Seriously, if anyone has purchased this product for any reason other than as a hilarious novelty, they’re either a complete moron, or a hopeless slave to consumerism.
