Some argue that collecting things is a natural human impulse to ward of the inevitable end of our own existence, and while it’s true that having several boxes of Magic: the Gathering cards hidden underneath a tarp in the garage does absolutely nothing to ward of the grave, it does offer a pleasant distraction, much like list-based websites. It’s with the hope that you may live forever (but the grim realization that you won’t) that we present to you some of the strangest collections in the world.
1.
Handcuffs
Are you a career criminal or some kind of freaky sex dynamo? If so, you’re already familiar with the modern handcuff. But did you know that there’s a rich, riveting and not at all boring history behind restraints that most people never bother to learn?
They’re missing so much!
Joseph Lauher maintains Handcuffs.org, the internet’s sole resource for all things wrist restraints. It’s there that you’ll find galleries featuring hundreds of handcuffs, leg irons, thumbscrews and dreaded German nippers, a combination of words so void of definition that Googling them can result in either great surprise or great disappointment depending on your arrest record.
Perhaps you’re scoffing at Lauher’s life work. Perhaps you are one of the few recognized handcuff masters in the world, assuming such a thing exists. “Surely this website has nothing to offer me,” you say as you thrust your nose skyward. Well then Johnny Rudedouche, prove your manhood and vast (if not useless) knowledge by thwarting the “puzzle for experts.” Can you unlock it’s secrets? Can you forgive yourself for not immediately recognizing the pun in the last sentence?
2.
Bizarre Cookie Fortunes
High-school drop-outs, take heart: somewhere in the world right now at least one person is getting paid actual money to come up with the phrases, fortunes, and occasional threats you see inside of fortune cookies. I’m guessing there’s no prerequisites for this job considering much of the time they’re in broken English and riddled with typos, so get to posting your resume on Monster.com so you can live the dream tomorrow.
Damn!
The website Weird Fortune Cookie gives you everything advertised on the tin: weird fortune cookie fortunes. Helpfully broken down into categories such as “Bizarre,” Irony,” and Vague,” you can join in on the fun of solving linguistic riddles immediately after a disappointing dessert. Riddles like “Don’t kiss an elephant on the lips today.”
Our love can never be.
The best section, however, is the fabled “TMI.” You know that game people play by adding “…in bed” to the end of their fortunes? Well now you can save what little creative energy that took because the only way these can get any more sexual is if they were written by pre-Jehovah’s Witness Prince. Choose from a wide range of perverse classics, such as “do unto others as you’d have them do unto you” and “you have an unusual equipment for success, use it.”
Just so nothing is lost on you, the cookie is talking about a penis in the last one. Good? Good.
3.
Toothpaste
According to the American Dental Association, people are absolutely terrible at maintaining decent oral health. This can be attributed to two proven facts:
-Dentists have impossibly high standards for what constitutes a “clean” mouth, and
-People like eating more than making their mouths look like they don’t eat.
However, a new and not-at-all made up study indicates that there may be a third reason for wide-spread toothlessness: intimidation. There is such a wide variety of different “peppermint this” and “whitening power that” that it’s well within the realm of reason to assume that you are terrified to brush your teeth. If you’re looking for help, we regret to inform you that there is nothing that we or anyone else can do to ease your crippling and kind of funny fear, but we can introduce you to a man who harbors what terrorizes you the most.
Val Koplavok maintains Toothpaste World, his own personal collection of toothpastes (the world’s largest, as advertised on the front page). As of this writing, much of the website is under reconstruction, but two important sections remain: the history of oral hygiene, where one can learn that before the eighteenth century a happy mouth required a thorough washing with tortoise blood (suck that, Listerine!), and the gallery of “Our Highlights,” which contains mostly toothpastes made with alcohol.
