Giant, Spooky Animatronics Are 75 Percent Off at the Home Depot

"It is Skelly, the Home Depot skeleton-the most fashionable Home Depot product of probably the past decade. If you live in America, this skeleton presides over a yard near you. And newly this year, a smaller, 6.5-foot "Ultra Skelly" is outfitted with motion sensors and motors to make life truly weird-and also act as a strange alarm system against package thieves and hungry opossums."

"Which, finally, is a price I'm willing to pay. I have secretly coveted this skeleton and its kin, the comically grim watchmen of American October. But I, like my father before me and his father before him, am a cheapskate about all things but food and drink, and will talk myself out of anything that's not (a) edible, (b) potable, or (c) verifiably "a deal." Well, here I am, world. This is a deal."

Skelly is a widely displayed Home Depot skeleton decoration with glowing eyes and a gangly frame propped by unseen rods. A new, smaller 6.5-foot Ultra Skelly includes motion sensors and motors to animate the figure and to act as an eccentric alarm against package thieves and hungry opossums. Skelly and related giant cat and dog figures are discounted 75 percent from typical prices well north of $200. After the markdown, Ultra Skelly costs $70, the sitting dog $63 (down from $249), and the 5-foot cat $50. Availability is scarce and some models are already out of stock for delivery in certain zip codes, though dog and cat may still ship before Halloween.

Read at WIRED