(Editor’s Note: To get the full effect of today’s review, you must read it like you’re an evil scientist. Trust me, the review will be better.)
You taunt me with your numbers and blank boxes, making me spend hours trying to figure out your mysterious ways. The pressure of trying to solve you permeates from my body into my pencil’s eraser and then into weak newspaper paper, causing it to tear, along with my hopes and dreams of solving the mystery that is you.
You look so easy to do, but are difficult like William Faulkner novels and making women orgasm.
Despite all that time spent, I have yet to solve one of you, and you are now on my list of things I have yet to solve, which grows longer every year.
This list includes: the Rubik’s Cube, a 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle of kittens, a crossword puzzle on the back of a Denny’s paper place mat, a word find puzzle on a Frosted Flakes box I opened in 1993, and the Da Vinci Code.
But I feel your days are numbered, Sudoku. For I have the key to unlocking your mysteries. It is the Staples Easy Button, which will make quick work of your numeric ways. For I have seen its power and it is magnificent.
Just by pressing the Staples Easy Button, entire offices have been cleaned, ink cartridges have fallen from the sky, and the Great Wall of China can instantly pop out of the ground.
It is as powerful as the fortune-telling Magic 8 Ball, which has accurately predicted on many occasions that I will not get laid.
It was difficult trying to find the elusive Staples Easy Button. For the Staples online store has been sold out for months. I thought, if only I had a Staples Easy Button to make it easier to find a Staples Easy Button. However, I ended up doing something much easier…eBay.
It was well worth the $4.75 plus $4.99 shipping to have the opportunity to see you unraveled, Sudoku. Now with one press of this Staples Easy Button, all your answers will be revealed!
(Presses Staples Easy Button)
“That was easy.”
What? Where are the answers?
(Presses Staples Easy Button again)
“That was easy.”
Why won’t you show me the answers, Staples Easy Button?
(Presses it again)
“That was easy.”
NOOOOOOOOOO!!!
The Staples Easy Button doesn’t work!
You may have won this battle, but you have yet to win the war, Sudoku. I shall unlock your mysteries someday.
SUDOKU!!!
(Editor’s Note: Thanks to Impulsive Buy reader Muneer for letting me know about the Staples Easy Button. If only it could truly make my life easier.)

Item: Staples Easy Button
Price: $4.75 (plus shipping)
Purchased at: eBay
Rating: 4 out of 10
Pros: Says “That was easy” when button is pushed. Batteries included. Nice novelty item to have on your desk at work. Kittens. Frosted Flakes.
Cons: Totally ineffective in making things easy. It can’t even make Paris Hilton easier. Not available at Staples online store. Can easily annoy those around you if pressed too many times. My inability to solve a sudoku, figure out a Rubik’s Cube, put together a jigsaw puzzle, and make women orgasm. William Faulkner novels.
I don’t think it’s physically possible to make Paris Hilton easier. It probably also wouldn’t work on Madonna.
Sometimes I read this blog at work. And I feel sort of dirty because it really isn’t something to be read at work, then again I enjoy taking time from work to laugh about ridiculous things (and not do work).
Is the easy button a real thing???
Chuck – Actually, today’s Madonna probably isn’t easy at all. However, 1980’s to early-1990’s Madonna is a whole different story.
Abi – That might be a bad thing, because I think some people read this blog to help them fall asleep.
nils – Yes, the Easy Button is real, but doesn’t work at all.
what’s the point? i don’t get it…. when do you have to push the button, when something is hard….. when something is easy? if you manage to complete a task you don’t want someone to tell you that it was easy, you want someone to congratulate you on your acomplishment, and if the thing is hard and you don’t do it, then a button that reminds you of your failure is as bad.
i just don’t see it!
fatyoli – The Easy Button is used when things get hard or when someone becomes lazy.
Fu&k Sudoku! I don’t have time to waste on silly little puzzles that I can’t solve!
Once again, it’s just more shame. Can’t believe you spent a whole 5 smackers on that + shippin’ ‘n’ handlin’. Shame. But, look how cute those kittens are!
That kitten pic is soo cute awww. I think you should somehow make a big game of “Press Your Luck” with the Easy button. C’mon big whammie!!
I have an Easy Button. My employer bought a boatload of them to celebrate a business deal and gave them out to everyone in the office.
I foolishly gave mine to my 10 year old daughter. The thrill of hearing “That was easy” over and over and over again never seems to wear thin.
I blame Radio Disney and their repetitive mind control techniques. Maybe Disney and Staples have joined forces to brainwash our youth somehow? The Easy Button could contain a subliminal message, you know. I think it’s telling me to drink more beer.
Sudoku isn’t that hard, people. It just takes a little deductive reasoning…
I have to agree with Fatyoli, if you do something hard and accomplish it, and then push a button to find out “that was easy”…that’s got to be somewhat of a downer. But if you can’t accomplish the difficult task, and push the button for help, and it says “that was easy” then you’ll feel like a dumbs**t for not being able to do whatever it was. And if something was truly easy to do, then finding out “that was easy” would be somewhat anticlimactic…
And if you push a button and it says “that was easy”, but inkjet cartridges don’t fall from the sky, and your office isn’t miraculously clean and tidy, and certainly no great wall of china shows up… well, that’s just got to be downright disappointing!
My local Staples store has a bunch of those “Easy Buttons” still available. Maybe I should load up on them and then sell them on Ebay…apparently people are willing to pay good money for them. *wink*
what a rip! I’d demand a refund!
You didn’t read the fine print on the back. This button actually works in the following way: everytime you press it, you are making a random blogger’s life easier. However, due to the Third Law of Conservation of Easyness, some other random blogger’s life gets harder. I think have been on the loser end of the button press for awhile. Thanks a farking lot Staples.
ah yes I forgot: “William Faulkner” and “women’s orgasm” in the same sentence, very nice, very nice.
Did you leave a link to this blog entry in the eBay feedback?
That Easy Button is so patronizing.
If it worked, I’d get it to start and finish my thesis. Then nevermind how patronizing it is saying it was easy to do!
Wow, $10 is a lot for a pair of AA batteries. At least they come in a cute little talking carrying case.
That button could be the best thing to hit law school. Every obnoxious a$$ could use it after taking a final. Great. Really… Thanks, Marvo, for putting that one in my head.
So, The Big Rock in the Middle of the Ocean doesn’t have a Staples? Heh, out here in the Midwest I can get it with next day delivery. Oh, and if you are a Staples Rewards customer, you get free shipping.
4th review my name is mentioned in. Yay!. Granted, the 3rd one was you telling me I won a box of cereal, but is made up by the whole Energy week thing. I wonder what the fifth review will be about…
/attention whoring>
Easy does it, Marvo. I love Sudoku but after a few months of doing them, i still can only do the “easy” ones. The challenge of the more difficult puzzles frustrates me!
I think the better thing to do is hire a genie, or perhaps Jeannie (from “I Dream of Jeannie,” though i do believe the beautiful Barbara Eden has passed off this Urth) to do all of your hard stuff.
Look for one of those magic lamps next time you’re meandering along the beach!
Marvo…perhaps you need more practice with this button in order to make a woman orgasm.
God, Marvo, we really are soulmates. If I had any money I’d be on a plane right now, thinking about only two things. One of them would be teaching you how to solve Sudoku. 😉
Fatoyli: When do you have to push the button, when something is hard…
Dirty.
Heh, Gia got it. I didn’t want to say it first.
There are so many hidden meanings in Fatoyli’s comment, I don’t know where to start.
I want one, even though it is little more than a glorified paper weight. I’m a sucker for pointless novelty items, I suppose.
Sasha_Kitty – While we’re at it, screw crosswords and word jumble.
Domokun – Awww, cute! Don’t masturbate or you may kill one.
skibs – NO WHAMMIES, NO WHAMMIES, NO WHAMMIES…STOP!
Wednesday – With toys that talk, I think the best thing to do is secretly take out the batteries and when your kid asks you why it doesn’t work anymore, tell them that the toy got tired of talking and is mad at them. Oh, I’d make a good father.
Caray – I wish there was an easy button on my shirt and when a woman pressed it, it would say, “I’m easy.”
Webmiztris – Or I could just sell it on eBay.
Bryan – Orgasm by Faulkner.
cybele – My typical eBay feedback: “Great price. Great shipping. Thank you.”
Gwen – You know what you need. An Easy Button AND a sledgehammer.
Lizzy – Yes, apparently all forms of energy are increasing in price. Gas…Increasing. AA batteries…Increasing.
Gen – Well after they do that, you and your fellow students can stab them with your pencils.
Muneer – Staples? I don’t need no stinkin’ Staples! I have Office Max AND Office Depot. They both have red in their logos. Sure, they don’t have an arena named after either of them, but that’s so overrated.
Karen – Or I could rub Buddha’s belly.
Grins – I don’t know if the button would appreciate all the saliva with all the practicing I would do with it.
Mir – I know what the other thing would be…I can’t believe I just spent $1,000 to meet a quasi-product review blog editor.
Gia on Guam & Muneer – You guys are such pervs…and that’s why I like you guys.
Andy – It’s definitely better than a rock paper weight.
lol…wipes tears….hyperventilates….
sadly gia and muneer i’m just an innocent girl, not a gram of dirt in my mind….hihihi
on the other side, you guys are bad, bad people with dirty minds!
listerine for you!
True. Seems like it would get annoying after a while, the “that was easy” bit. Heh.. the kitten thing was funny though. I know the feeling, I hate watching Bob Barker masturbate too.
That was easy. Same thing I heard after my first Brazilian wax. Just because it was easy, didn’t mean that it didn’t hurt.
Karen, Barbara Eden might take umbrage to being called dead, because she isn’t. Marvo, this easy button seems like one of those trite office-culture annoyances, much like those “Hang in There” posters (speaking of kittens). Although it could be handy on a bedside table for those post-coital bragging rights!
When it comes down to it, I like something hard to push my button.
Man, my friend’s dad is president of Staples. You totally should have emailed me and asked for one and I would’ve gotten him to send it to you for free. That being said, perhaps this fancy smancy plastic button version is not the real deal, and you want the old school magnet button version? I could hook you up man.
Larry I want an “Easy” button…I’d get more dates.
FatYoli – …and what’s wrong with a dirty mind? Clean is for countertops.
Andy – Oh man, thanks for the image… 🙁
hair remover – Easy for the waxer, but hard on the waxee.
Eryn – The only thing a button would say, if it were next to my bed, is “That was quick.” 🙁
Gia on Guam – A stick?
Larry – Nah, that’s okay, I’ll just stick with my plain old plastic button, until the batteries die or until someone throws it against a wall because they’re totally annoyed with it.
Gia on Guam – If you move to a large metropolitan area, I’m sure you will.
Yeah a meat stick.
The administrative assistant for our department just got one of these. Fun to play with. If it worked in real life I’d be taking it to use during training on days we have tests.
Sudoku Game – With a name like Sudoku Game, you’d better like sudoku…and games.
Gia on Guam – Like a shish kebob?
Chuck – “Fun to play with…” Wait a few weeks, then we will see. 🙂