The Baby Mop Is Real

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This article is part of our series on the 17 most unique things to have come out of Japan. Check out the other 16.

Child labour might be illegal, but you can always buy a baby mop. Yep, what started out as a Japanese spoof is now an actual, real product. The ‘mop’ is a onesie, with super-absorbent materials (as in, what mop heads are made of) attached to the legs and arms. The idea is that as the baby crawls around the floor, he/she takes care of the cleaning and polishing at the same time.

It’s an example of what the Japanese refer to as chindogu, which translates to ‘unuseless items’. They’re objects that are useful in theory, but pretty much useless in practice. And they’re mostly more or less ridiculous.

You can grab a baby mop for $40 at BetterThanPants.com, an online store dedicated to selling funny T-shirts (mainly). As soon as it went on the market two years ago, it sold at a gallop. Director of operations Mike Parker, told Time, “At first it was two or three a day, and we were like, oh wow, people are actually buying these. Then it just kind of took off. All of a sudden they were like crazy double digits. As far as anything that’s not T-shirt related, nothing has taken off like this.”