Ah yes, the Magic of Magnets and Velcro. Who could question it?

HHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA

(Pauses to catch breath)

HAHAHAAHAHAHAAHAAHAAHAHAHAAHAAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHA..

(Ok, sorry.  I'm ready now.)

This is another chapter in the never-ending late night tv show which might as well be called Why didn't I think of this and make a million dollars?  I mean, really.  Two dollars worth of cheap mesh, eighteen cheap magnets, and a few inches of Velcro, and suddenly I'm a RETIRED teacher sleeping in every morning and strolling museums and taking fabulous vacations instead of trying to talk over inattentive 9th graders and grading homework.

What gets me about this is not the brilliantly simple mesh curtain idea.  It's that the ad comes very close to letting us know "look, this is junk, but it will work for a while, and don't you think that even if  'a while' means a month or so, it might be worth giving it a try at this price?"  Unlike most ads for Miracle Stuff You Never Knew You Needed Until This Moment, Magic Mesh doesn't claim to be a Miracle Product (just Magic, which is not the same thing.)  It doesn't exaggerate the Miracle Properties of Magnets- we know how they work, and there they are, working exactly as expected.  It doesn't claim that Magic Indestructible Fasteners hold it in place- nope, we are TOLD it's just Velcro, and everyone under the age of fifty has a pretty good idea how well and for how long Velcro holds things in place.  Anyone with half a brain looks at these dumb animals and dogs going in and out of houses and realizes that Magic Mesh stuff is probably going to be falling down every few hours at most.  And that it won't always click shut properly- at least once in this very ad, we see the curtain fail to close completely behind someone.

But maybe, just maybe, this thing is better than having your dog scratch wildly at the patio door (you could actually train your dog not to do that, but it takes a bit more effort, and another Late Night TV Product.)  Maybe it is better than opening the door and letting the killer insects who were mysteriously waiting to ambush you into your house, where they would probably instantly kill you and your entire family.  Even if it is made out of junk and will never actually need storing, because you'll be using the Second Magic Screen Free Pay Only Extra Processing and Handling before the 4th of July weekend.

At least, it's worth thinking about.  I just wonder- does it really make that much noise when it closes?  Or was this ad made by the same people who give us those horrible Kit Kat commercials?