The spikey backpack

Do you ever see something in a shop and think - who on earth would ever wear that? There are so many manufactured items that make me scratch my head. They are either totally impractical, terribly ugly, or just down-right strange. Yesterday though, I saw someone sporting one of these clothing items that answered my question of "who?" I was out grocery shopping when I saw a very regular looking woman wearing a small black backpack. Seems perfectly normal - in fact I too have a small black backpack. But hers was different. It had a hard shell with large blunt spikes protruding from it. It reminded me of the enemy (named Bowser I discovered after a wikipedia search) from Super Mario Brothers. Why on earth would she have this backpack in her possession? I wondered if it belonged to her kids and then they got tired of it. But really - is it really necessary to wear a backpack with spikes? Even if you have no other back in which to carry around your belongings, i think a shopping bag is better than the spikey backpack.