There are a lot of worthless things in the world, if you ask me. If you aren’t asking me, then stop reading. For example, eyebrow brushes are worthless. You do not need an eyebrow brush to smooth the two or three hairs that may or may not be out of place along your eyebrow line when you wake up in the morning. That is what your finger is for. When my mother first introduced me to make-up, I pulled an eyebrow brush out of her make-up bag and asked her what it was. She said, “Oh, we don’t use those. Those are silly.” So they have a prominent place in a make-up bag, but are never used…I guess.

Doormats are worthless. The slightly witty sayings or bedazzled patterns that are supposed to sit in front of your doorway to welcome guests into your home continually run away from their spots. You will always find your doormat at least five feet from its designated area. Also, you can’t really clean a doormat, so after a while, the mat is so dirty that it only adds to the dirt on people’s shoes, instead of wiping it away. Then you end up vacuuming your carpets, the ones you thought you wouldn’t have to vacuum because guests would wipe their feet on your doormat. If you are like my family and me, you also end up vacuuming the actual doormat, in hopes that next time it stays clean – but it won’t.

Bark collars are worthless. Riley (my infamous dog, as publicized in my first-issue column) has the loudest bark known to mankind. Fact – it’s been proven. Riley has a bark collar, but it sits on the shelf in our back room. Why isn’t it strapped to his neck? Because it is worthless – catching on? It never works, never deters Riley from violently barking at the mailman or a leaf blowing off a tree, whichever alarms him more. And if even half the dogs in my neighborhood had bark collars, I can tell you that none of them worked either.

Car alarms are indeed, worthless. You show me a person who has had a car alarm prevent someone from breaking into their car and I will show you someone who is full of crap. I recently witnessed an old woman lock her car, then try to open her door. When the car alarm sounded, she confusedly stared at her car for a good three minutes before finally hitting her key chain to make the car quiet down. Apparently, she hit the lock button again, because when she tried to open her trunk, the car alarm again sounded. This went on for about four minutes before she finally gave up and walked into Upper Convo, without retrieving the things stowed in her car, which had apparently become Azkaban prison. If the owner of the car cannot get into it, than a burglar can’t – is that what you are thinking? You are wrong.

When I was twelve, my family’s minivan got broken into at the beach. Two of the van’s windows had been smashed and it was a conversion van, so it sat up high enough to make someone climbing into a window have to swing themselves into it, thus rocking the van back and forth. But not a peep came from the burglar system, until my father opened the door to show the responding police officers his registration.

Finally, a Justin Bieber CD is worthless. No explanation needed.