Worst Headphones Ever?

After appx 18 months of heavy use, the Phillips headphones I use for my iPod died yesterday. I'd planned stop at Best Buy on my way home this evening, but couldn't wait: not only am I accustomed to working while listening to my iPod, but several co-workers are suffering from various ailments that have them coughing and hacking and clearing their throats and so on non-stop: the constant annoyance is about to drive me nuts.

So I went to the drug store during lunch and bought the only headphones they stock, an earbud style model I'll call Oombay Ixstay sold by a company I'll refer to as Entrysay. Wouldn't want to get any angry corporate lawyers after me, so forgive my use of inscrutable code names.

At $6.99, I knew that I wasn't getting high quality headphones, but I expected something barely functional. These aren't even at that level. The sound quality is poor, but I could live with that for a day or two: at least I'd be able to listen to something to help drown out XX's mucus-clearing sounds. But the earbuds are so huge that they don't fit well; again, I could probably tolerate that for a short while. But the biggest problem is that the hard plastic is rough and has sharp edges that are not just uncomfortable but painful: no, they didn't draw blood, but I dabbed a tissue in one ear because I was certain that they had.

If your only entrance into a crowded entertainment-related market is to manufacture a product at such low costs that purchasers experience pain and discomfort as a result of using your product, well, you might want to ask yourself if having a presence in that market is really so important after all.