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Unitasker Wednesday: Calendar 2010 Rolling Pin
All Unitasker Wednesday posts are jokes — we don’t want you to buy these items, we want you to laugh at their ridiculousness. Enjoy!
As a promotion to build brand awareness, the company World Wide Bakery (a Macedonian company known for their frozen, stuffed, savory pies) made and distributed the unitasking wonder known as the Calendar 2010 Rolling Pin.
Not only is this item limited to being used for just a 12-month time period (or, rather, 11 months now that it’s February), but it has to be used in conjunction with another rolling pin that first flattens the dough to a smooth finish. And, I have yet to come up with a reason why someone would want to roll the 2010 calendar into their baked goods. The whole idea seems a little odd to me.
Granted, if you chose to use it as a weapon to fight off home invaders, then it would clearly be a multi-tasker. However, I don’t think violence was what World Wide Bakery had in mind when they produced this unitasking gem.
(Thanks to Sarah for the link and Ads of the World for the images.)
33 comments posted
Posted by MissPrism - 02/03/2010
That rolling pin would imprint the *mirror image* of a 2010 calendar onto your pastry. Which is even less useful. And means that the picture’s faked.
Posted by Brenda - 02/03/2010
I think the rolling pin in intended to be used as a calendar, not as a rolling pin. I guess that puts in the the same category as all other yearly calendars, they are only good for 12 months.
MissPrism is right, the imprint would be a mirror image of the calendar, if it was used as a rolling pin.
Posted by JVM - 02/03/2010
I wouldn’t call it a uni-tasker! It’s useful for many (specific) years to come!
2010 current year
2021 11 years after
2027 17 years after
2038 28 years after
2049 39 years after
2055 45 years after
2066 56 years after
2077 67 years after
2083 73 years after
2094 84 years after
2100 90 years after
2106 96 years after
2117 107 years after
2123 113 years after
Posted by Martin - 02/03/2010
Well, not entirely unitasking. According to this, it’ll be useful again in just 11 years:
http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/repeating.html
…assuming that you whittle off the year indicator.
Posted by Martin - 02/03/2010
Dang… beat me by seconds!
Posted by SusanTheCat - 02/03/2010
I can’t see any weekday names on the pin, meaning it is more like a perpetual calendar. I guess for those of us that can’t remember how many days to a month there are.
Susan
Posted by Lehcarjt - 02/03/2010
Maybe it’s just me, but I thought this was hilarious. Can you imagine the fun of serving a pie with a backward calendar top crust?
Posted by Vicki K. - 02/03/2010
If I didn’t already have a rolling pin, I would like to have this – particularly for a meaningful year. Some people just like the graphic quality of numbers. Besides, your alphabet soup letters didn’t assemble themselves in perfect order. Maybe it just takes an accountant…
Posted by CJ - 02/03/2010
It was an advertising thing.
http://adsoftheworld.com/media.....r_2010_wwb
Posted by Jessiejack - 02/03/2010
I feel sad for the trees used.
Posted by Luis Oliveira - 02/03/2010
It’s a gift, Erin. And a nice and funny one. Plus, all calendars are unitaskers.
Posted by nancy from mass - 02/03/2010
well, if it is wooden you could always sand it down and have a regular rolling pin to use on your pastry after.
Posted by Keetha - 02/03/2010
I thought this was hilarious, too. Thanks for the laughs!
Posted by Rue - 02/03/2010
You could use it like a rubber stamp! You’d just need a really big inkpad…
Posted by PlantingOaks - 02/03/2010
My grandmother had some carved rolling pins used for making I don’t remember what.
What I do remember is they were hard to clean. And they were much less detailed than that.
Can you even imagine trying to get the flour out of those little numbers after you made your backwards-calendar-crust-pie?
Posted by Brie - 02/03/2010
What’s really odd if you look at the picture with the pin and the dough, the dough and the rolling pin both have right side up letters/number. The dough doesn’t seem like it is correct.
Posted by stephen crane - 02/03/2010
If I had one I’d use it to flatten dates!!
Posted by Kel - 02/03/2010
I’ve been told by my DH who used to do Pre-press printing stuff, that the image of the rolling pin has been “flipped” and that it would roll out right side up. Still think it’s a waste of resources and be a real pain to clean.
Calendars in general are not unitaskers as they keep my life organized & help me not forget appts. This rolling pin is. IMO
Posted by Michelle I Taming Time - 02/03/2010
Say What??
How on earth does anyone even come up with these things?
To echo a previous comment – why would you want the calendar imprinted on your baked goods? The mind boggles…
Posted by klutzgrrl - 02/03/2010
as Miss Prism noted, it’s printed the wrong way to actually roll it onto pastry. Bizarre. I guess it’s meant to be used as a calendar object in itself?
How much useless crap is created in the name of brand promotion? Ugh.
Posted by gene - 02/03/2010
It’s worse than the desk engine.
Posted by Cynthia Friedlob, The Thoughtful Consumer - 02/03/2010
As CJ pointed out in the comment above, this is an advertising promotional product not meant for sale to the general public. See the link here:
http://adsoftheworld.com/media.....r_2010_wwb
Also, technically, it’s a perpetual calendar and not limited to 2010 although that’s the year it’s being used for promotional purposes by the bakery.
If you actually did want to use it (no, I don’t know why you would), the letters and numbers would be embossed so that if you flipped the dough over after rolling it out, they would read correctly, as they do in the unfortunately misleading picture. Other embossing rolling pins work this way.
But the important issue doesn’t seem to me to be that this is a unitasker because it was never really designed to “task” in any way other than its promotional use. I think that a more useful discussion here would be to think of the many, many often totally useless promotional products that are specially made and given away by companies, and then try to figure out why doing this is perceived as a valuable way to solidify relationships with customers or occasionally recruit new business.
To keep customers happy, companies would better spend their time, energy and money on delivering exceptional products and services rather than promotional “stuff.”
Posted by STLMom - 02/03/2010
As someone who now owns a lefse rolling pin (thanks, Mom!) that will be used only once a year for the rest of my life, I don’t feel qualified to comment on any rolling pin, no matter how weird or useless.
Posted by Richard | RichardShelmerdine.com - 02/04/2010
What a unique and amazing creation. Some people are geniuses!
Posted by Louise - 02/04/2010
I agree with Cynthia; let’s have a discussion about promotional give-aways. Possible future Unclutterer post?
Posted by Gabriel - 02/04/2010
I can’t believe no one brought up how hard it would be to clean if you had dough stuck in each little nook.
Posted by Zig - 02/04/2010
I would buy it as a gag gift for someone who bakes. If I only knew of someone who bakes..lol
Zig
Posted by Amy - 02/05/2010
This is histerical!!! Very creative and crazy strange! Don’t want one though!
Posted by Delores - 02/05/2010
OK, I don’t want one. But it did remind me of the rolling pin with little pictures that I have for rolling out the anise Christmas cookies that I can’t remember the name of because it’s late here. And that made me smile and feel good. And the rolling pin I have is a unitasker in that it only makes one kind of cookies once a year and not a unitasker in that it is history and family and enough of that that I continue to let it take up space in the back of my baking drawer.
Posted by Megan Becwar - 02/05/2010
“And, I have yet to come up with a reason why someone would want to roll the 2010 calendar into their baked goods.”
How about because IT’S AWESOME!
Posted by Karyn - 02/05/2010
@Cynthia Friedlob – “To keep customers happy, companies would better spend their time, energy and money on delivering exceptional products and services rather than promotional ‘stuff.’”
HEAR, HEAR!!! This is the kind of crap that serves no purpose other than to clutter our homes with stuff we don’t need and gets shuffled endlessly from drawer to bag to shelf to hollow-storage footstool because it has no “home” but it’s a GIFT, it’s a THING, not just an advertising flyer, and it just doesn’t seem right to throw it out.
Maybe advertisers need to learn that they send the wrong message when they send it on junk.
Even if the rolling pin were more practically designed, chances are the people receiving them already own at least one rolling pin. It’s not the kind of thing most people collect, and they don’t wear out as quickly as, say, dishtowels or potholders. And I’d rather have my dishtowels and potholders match my apartment decor, completely free of any advertising clutter.
Posted by Selena - 02/06/2010
You could make great wrapping paper with this, though.
Posted by Jill - 02/06/2010
What a goofy invention.
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