Smart Spin Food Storage System
Every once in a while — more often than we'd think, but less often than we'd like — we buy something on late night TV that's actually really great. Of course, for every pair of amazing, magical, volcano-defying Polar Mitts, there are 10 different tapes of hockey fights accompanied by amateur thrash metal.
The Smart Spin Food Storage System containers fall squarely into the first category — and pays homage to a dying way of life.
Once upon a time, America thrived upon the "build a better mousetrap" principle. The way to succeed in business was to invent a new product that filled a real need, or improve upon an existing product in a creative way.
A lot is made of how America has lost interest in this principle, but that's not true; all you have to do is look at the thriving motion picture and computer gaming industries, where originality is king...
Well, OK. We're no longer on the mousetrap system. It's official.
That's what makes Smart Spin so quaint. You look at it, and you can imagine a couple of guys sitting around, brainstorming.
GUY 1: Let's beat Tupperware.
GUY 2: Tupperware is a lethal empire. How dare we challenge their power?
GUY 1: What are the strengths of Tupperware?
GUY 2: Holds food. Reusable. Dishwasher safe.
GUY 1: Right. Weaknesses?
GUY 2: Hard to store. Impossible to figure out which damn lid goes with which container.
GUY 1: Solution: Smart Spin!
At this point, there's a sound effect of a harp going BRRRRRRRRN! and a sparkle wipe transition to a photo of the Smart Spin system.
The Smart Spin Food Storage System stores really easily; the three sizes of Smart Spin thwangers just stack on top of one another, making three reasonably short columns. The lids — which are, sacre bleu, interchangable — form the fourth stack. And all four stacks of durable, dishwasher- and microwave-safe plastic are constrained within a single lazy susan rack with a slide-out platform for easy access and easy storage.
This makes it all the more tragic that the Smart Spin Food Storage System is the last hollow death rattle of a once-great nation of commercial pioneers. American culture is in steep decline, shambling into decadance and sloth, losing its way in a maze of luxury, immorality and compromised journalism. Cars, houses and waistbands keep getting bigger. Scandals that make Watergate look like a fraternity prank stomp through the halls of the White House like rabid ogres; Americans shrug as their countrymen die overseas in a needless war sold to them with a series of lies; and reality TV shows, far from fading away into blissful oblivion, breed like gremlins dropped into a swimming pool.
We've seen it before: Rome fell because of internal rot and lost values, not because of the Goths and Vandals. A society that once prided itself on honest civic government, pioneering farmer-soldiers and good, hearty, um, slavery... became a corrupt and festering microcosm of greed, indolence and slavery. Smart Spin recalls austere order, discipline and pragmatic toughness of the Republic, even as other As Seen on TV products recall the decadence of the fall of empire.
All in all, a great reason to order some of world's most amazing and innovative new Space Age plastic food-storage containers. Also, the same-size locking lids make it easy to find the right size lid every time and the Smart Spin containers are great for the office, garage or refrigerator.
— James Norton (jrnorton@flakmag.com)
