![]() ![]() ![]() “Something that people think is a silly piece of plastic is one of the reasons I don’t need a PCA when I travel.” Without a “sock putter-onner,” as she calls it, she would be forced to rely on the assistance of a personal care attendant (PCA) to put her socks on every morning. Ladau, who uses a wheelchair for mobility, cannot bend over to put on socks. (She’s talking about a similar device, not the exact as-seen-on-TV gadget.) ”If I didn’t have that silly piece of plastic with ropes, I wouldn’t be able to put socks on,” says Emily Ladau, a disabled advocate, writer, and speaker with Larsen syndrome, a congenital skeletal disorder. “Useless” products can actually spell independence And so those products Oliver and the internet at large enjoy mocking? Not so useless after all. Some people, for example, just need support while they recover from surgery or injuries. These issues may be congenital or acquired or even temporary. If you’re a baker who loves making cakes, what would you do if you couldn’t separate an egg by casually cracking it on the edge of the bowl and using the shell to tease the yolk and white apart? The inability to perform these kinds of activities independently can have huge consequences for people with disabilities.Ī variety of impairments can make these tasks challenging, including hand tremors or weakness, paralysis or paresis, limited range of motion, arthritis and other joint conditions, chronic pain, neurological disabilities or stroke, developmental disabilities, and amputations. Imagine being unable to slice a banana over your morning cereal because your hands are paralyzed or joint contractures make it hard to grip both the banana and the knife. Things like banana slicers, egg separators, jar openers, buttoners, tilting jugs for dispensing liquids, and much more are the subject of constant amusement on the internet: “Who uses these kinds of things?” “ You don’t need an avocado slicer.” These products are typically positioned as “useless” in scathing roundups of products no one could possibly need, representing little more than wastes of plastic and resources. ![]() You’ve probably seen examples of these kinds of “useless products for lazy people” before. The camera cut back to Oliver chuckling to himself as he mocked the device and the people who use it. While discussing the same topic on the Hannity Show, he took a moment to highlight the dwindling number of companies willing to associate themselves with his news program - ” My Pillow, Recticare cream, and of course, the Sock Slider.”Īudience members roared with laughter as Oliver rolled footage of a Sock Slider ad, featuring people moaning and groaning dramatically as they struggled to put on their socks before trying out the device and beaming at the ease of use. On a June episode of his show Last Week Tonight, John Oliver went in on a product called the Sock Slider. ![]()
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