You Had One Job! by Beverly L. Jenkins
My rating: 3/5 cats
since i’m not able to sit here at the computer desk for too long without crumpling over in spinepain, i am not in the proper headspace to write eloquent and incisive reviews of books with words in ’em. thankfully there are books like these where i don’t have to think too hard, and i can STILL get this overlong list of ‘books i still need to review’ to shrink a little bit. huzzah!
this one is pretty similar to others of its kind—there are some pictures that are genuinely funny, a few accompanying editor-supplied captions that are okay, and a whole lot of filler.
because accidents happen, guys, screws fall out all the time, the world is an imperfect place, and sometimes an orange tic tac falls into a package of grape tic tacs at the tic tac factory and then some douchebag tweets a picture of this unspeakable failure in a fit of superiority and pool-skimmers who make books like these snatch it up from internet, repackage it into physical book-form, and sell for money. because all of the 137 pictures in this book are ripped straight offa the internets, credited, of course, but still. it’s just compiling the low-hanging fruit.
and a lot of the fruit is sour—after being exposed to page after page of situations where an item has been placed in the wrong packaging: “it says gummy worms, but it’s actually a muffin, OMG!!” well, it gets old pretty quickly. so check it—i have taken this book and gone through it, weeding out the ones i think are genuinely funny, and i don’t even feel bad about it because this is all just regurgitated from the internet after all, anyway, so i’m just re-editing the already lifted-and-edited material, and i’m not even getting any money for it. i’m the steven soderbergh of silly humor books!
so, the things iiii find funny are definitely on the juvenile side of the spectrum, for instance, when the inappropriate sexualization of children’s toys occurs
or when signs make bold promises of reasonably priced services they might not be cleared to provide
(i’m not even sure what that one was meant to be offering, so it must be real. bold, indeed)
keeping in mind everything i’ve already said about how mislabeled things aren’t that funny, remember that exceptions to the rule are what the world runs on, and that sometimes products can be very dangerous if used improperly
or can be downright terrifying to kids (or hilarious, if you’re a sicko like me)
or can be perplexing on a number of different levels.
there’s a commitment to half-assing things in this book that is both horrifying to those of us who are detail-oriented hard workers, but also kind of impressive in their “good enough” attitude
it’s even better when the mistakes are passed off as intentional
there are some reminders that location, location, location can be very tricky
and dear lord, why?
but as important as placement is the importance of spell-checking.
germany is mightily displeased by this
although spellchecking can sometimes be difficult when the machines are out to get you
and they are out to get you, make no mistake
as important as spellchecking is making sure your sign makes sense, even if it’s just for your hillbilly garage sale
and maybe we can agree to not to make things harder for people who are already facing challenges
there’s a few things in here that oughtn’t be. dump cakes, although very regrettably named, are an actual thing. and both Cake Wrecks: When Professional Cakes Go Hilariously Wrong and Wreck the Halls: Cake Wrecks Gets “Festive” do a much better job presenting funny cake-based errors.
and this? this is not a mistake. this is just awesome. recognize.
and since i have so wantonly reprinted so many examples from the book, allow me to offer an ORIGINAL photo of a wicked expensive cheese i found at my market recently, in order to emphasize the importance of the decimal point.
now i will go rest my stupid garbage-spine.
read my book reviews on goodreads
