Occasionally, I like to take a break from regular blogging and do some product reviews.  And by product reviews, I mean eviscerate the inventors of anything in the Skymall Magazine and mock those who buy their products mercilessly.  There is simply so much shit out there that we just don’t need, and we keep coming up with more and more of it.  Back stretchers and garbage “systems” and blankets that are actually backwards robes and stupid shoes for animals; the list goes on and on.  So when I came across an article last week for the HAPIfork, I simply couldn’t stop myself from sharing it with all of you.

What is the HAPIfork, you ask?  I’ll tell you.  The HAPIfork is a vibrating fork designed to tell you when you’re eating too fast.  It is apparently going to revolutionalize the way we eat, because eating too fast is the root cause of pretty much everything from acid reflux to obesity and beyond.  Need me to back up, you say?  Did you get stuck at the phrase VIBRATING FORK, like I did?  You read it right.  The HAPIfork, according to their website, “Records how long your meal lasts, records how much time elapses between each bite of food, records how many mouthfuls of food you consume, vibrates with flashing lights when you are eating too fast, and includes a USB port and is Bluetooth capable,” so you can upload your data and track your progress, you food scarfing monster.

So you’re pretty much using the vibrating, light-up version of a shock collar to feed yourself.  If you are eating too fast, HAPIfork tells you.  If you eat too fast a couple days in a row, HAPIfork tracks your lack of progress via an app you can upload to your smartphone.  If you eat at what HAPIfork considers a normal pace, HAPIfork acts like a regular fork instead of acting like a sex toy while you’re trying to eat dinner.  How does the journal read, I wonder?  Day One: You ate like a cow.  Stop it.  Day Two:  Slightly less like a cow, but still way too fast.  Day Three: Can’t. Stop. The Buzzing.  Day Four: Congratulations!  You ate like a “normal” person!  Maybe next week we’ll give you one of those potties that lights up when you make your pee-pee in it!

The science behind HAPIfork makes sense.  If you eat slowly, it gives your brain time to realize that you’re getting full.  I get that.  So does anyone else who has ever attended a Weight Watchers meeting or, I don’t know, taken high school biology.  But personally – and I suspect I’m not alone – I didn’t get overweight because I didn’t understand that I was getting full.  I got overweight because I really fucking like to eat.  Being full has nothing to do with it.  It has a lot more to do with the fact that, ahem, there’s-still-more-macaroni-and-cheese-and-I-know-it’s-there-and-what-if-it’s-the-last-time-I-ever-get-to-eat-macaroni-and-cheese-I’ll-be-so-fucking-mad-if-I-die-tomorrow-and-there’s-half-a-pan-of-it-left-and-my-last-thought-is-DAMMIT-I-should-have-eaten-that.

Also, I’m not a big fan of the shame-based tactic to try and lose weight.  On one hand, I guess it could work; after all, how do you explain that you have so little self-control that you essentially need a fork with training wheels?  But on the other, if I want to be ashamed of the baked potato soup-a-palooza that was this winter, I will simply go to the beach in my swimskort that I like to pretend hides my thighs and watch the skinny bitches that have the confidence to run in a bathing suit play beach volleyball.  (Seriously?  How does that work?  I suck at volleyball fully clothed.  In a bathing suit, especially my swimskort which can be slightly restricting once wet, I would probably knock myself unconscious when my boobs hit me in the face and end up face down in the sand and on YouTube in one of those fail blog videos.)  (Which is one of my biggest nightmares, by the way, right after getting caught on the jumbotron at a baseball game right as I take a bite of hot dog.)

This might sound self-depreciating, and it is.  In reality, I rock that swimskort and have a blast at the beach several times a year. It doesn’t hurt that we bring a bottle of rum with us, but that’s besides the point.  The point is that I’m able to have fun despite the size of my ass.  I play catch and go underwater and get sand in unmentionable places and laugh all day with my husband and friends.  And you know what?  I’ve yet to notice anyone making fun of me.  Because they’re too busy laughing and playing catch and enjoying the day with their own family and friends.  The last thing I need is to pull out a vibrating, glowing fork that records and broadcasts my eating habits to the general public.

I so don’t want an app for that.

My utensils? Don’t need a USB port.