Gifts: Armaments

The newspapers are filled with ads for very expensive watches (if you’re a guy) and the latest celebrity brand perfumes (if you’re a gal). The airwaves offer big-screen TVs and iPods.

‘Tis the Season to be buying. If you’re buying big, Neiman Marcus offers its 100th Anniversary Fantasy Gift: An Imperial Lilies of the Valley Fabergé Egg for $3,525 (including shipping).

But what to do if you are confronted on Christmas Day by a Rabbit with Big Pointy Teeth? (This is what comes of watching “Monty Python & The Holy Grail,” a seasonal favorite.)

The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch is available for only $17.95 – an important reminder that comes to us from geek blogs. This plush version comes with critical instructions:

First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin. Then, shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shalt be three. Four thou shalt not count, nor either count though two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest though thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch toward thou foe, who being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it.

This is the stuff of legends, friend, even though this model “does not really light up or explode.” Well.

Go up-market if you like to the 50-caliber Barrett M82A1 sniper rifle for something over $8,000 – it puts the Fabergé egg in the shade and offers “unmatched respect.” I kinda like that. This is NOT something you’re likely to see advertised in a pre-Christmas Valassis insert. Think of it as a 30-pound stalking stuffer.

Quite a bit more stress-y on the Visa card, The Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) may or may not be available in time for Christmas; it depends on the success of its testing program. Lockheed Martin promises superior performance and affordable price – plus videos if you visit the company’s on-line shopping site.

Me? I’ll settle for the Holy Hand Grenade. Just the thing for a Big-Pointy-Teeth-Rabbit-free holiday season.