Likely Normal

Somewhere in the annals of business history, there exists a vault of ideas so baffling that they make a Goodyear blimp with braille seem almost logical. These are the brainchildren of executives who clearly thought a little too far outside the box.

Take KFC’s Firelog—a Yule log you could burn in your fireplace, made of compressed sawdust and 11 herbs and spices. Nothing says holiday cheer like your living room smelling like a deep fryer and regret. Or how about Colgate’s Beef Lasagna, a culinary abomination from the 1980s that asked the world, “What if toothpaste tasted like pasta?” Consumers answered with a resounding no.

Then there’s Bic’s “For Her” pens, because apparently, regular pens were just too masculine for delicate female hands. (Never mind that women had been writing with normal pens for centuries without spontaneously combusting.) And let’s not forget Twitter’s (X’s) rebrand—where a globally recognized bird was replaced by a symbol that looks like it was designed by a sleep-deprived intern using MS Paint.

But the crown jewel of corporate nonsense? The Segway. Hailed as the future of transportation, it instead became the preferred vehicle of mall cops and overenthusiastic tourists. It solved the problem nobody had: “What if walking… but dorkier?”

These misadventures in capitalism prove one thing: No matter how much money you have, you can’t buy common sense. So the next time you see a self-cooling pillow or Wi-Fi-enabled juicer, just remember—somewhere, a boardroom full of people thought that was a great idea.

And if you ever feel bad about your life choices? Just whisper to yourself: “At least I didn’t put braille on a blimp.”