Gadgets

Flotation shoes and other novelties

The post yesterday from DJ about the gas-powered shoes reminds me of some great big inflatable shoes I bought when I was in my late teens that supposedly allowed you to walk on water.  HA!  If I got anywhere it was one or two steps before collapsing into the pool.  I was always worried that I would fall onto the edge of the pool and crack my head open.  They looked something like these on the right.
A quick google shows that there are quite a few of these still out there that are quite a bit larger and might work better. The ones I had were maybe 18 inches long.

That got me to thinking about all the other awesome ‘finds’ you’d see in the back of magazines and elsewhere. I was a sucker for many of those ads.  X-Ray glasses, plastic army men by the case, baking soda-powered plastic submarine that was about an inch and a half long, magic sea-horses you could grow by just adding water, magic tricks that usually disappointed, and so many more.  

What awesome and not-so-awesome mail-order gadgets do you remember?
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