CES: Where you can smash an Acer laptop with a hammer

If you're going to be an exhibitionist, you need two things: courage and imagination.

These are not things one would expect from an insurance company. And yet, at CES, the Worth Avenue Group bucks the trend by allowing you to turn to violence.

The Worth Avenue Group, based in Stillwater, Okla., doesn't try to call your attention to its no doubt fine insurance policies for laptops, iPhones, and iPads.

Instead, the voice of Gretchen Cathey offered: "Hey, would you like to pick up this hammer and smash this laptop?"

This sounded like a fine idea.

So I picked up the orange-handled hammer and brought it crashing down on an Acer.

Cleverly, after a couple of my heaves that took out several letters, Cathey explained to me that for just $68 a year I could insure my MacBook Pro, should some deranged acquaintance decide to, say, grab a hammer and take out their frustrations on my QWERTY.

While a stunningly large number of exhibitors are garlanding their booths with glamorous women wearing short skirts, or, in the case of Lux Mobile, a dancing girl in a bikini and pink, furry boots, it's refreshing to see one exhibitor using some rather more subtle knowledge of the attendees' psyches.

"What if I completely smash up this Acer?" I asked Cathey.

"Oh, don't worry," she said. "We've got plenty more."