Why Must It Be?
I have noticed several inventions lately that seem rather ‘shall I say‚ questionable’? When you think of an inventor somebody like Eli Whitney or Thomas Edison or maybe that guy who invented the steam engine comes to mind. These guys invented stuff we could really use. They came up with things that made life a little easier. But a useful invention like the hamburger or the wringer washer seems kind of quaint compared to my recent discoveries.For example, I noticed on the cover of a catalog the other day a slightly sweaty woman walking on a treadmill in shorts and a tank top. The new invention? She was wearing a combination sport’s bra/heart rate monitor. At first, I laughed it off, but then I got to thinking? What if this is a good idea? And it catches on? What will they come up with for us men? Never mind about that.It just seems the ‘inventor’ slapped two existing inventions together and called his something new. You know like the guy that slapped a cheese sandwich with a hamburger and insisted he had created the cheeseburger. Wait. That was a good idea. No, it’s like combining an answering machine with a telephone. It’s not anything new, but it takes up less space. But a sports bra/heart monitor? It seems like something those over-eager couples show to an audience on an info-mercial. They ooh and aah over something that can chop onions, automatically sprinkle them on your cheeseburger and then fits nicely on the short shelf in your refrigerator. Ooooh!But what if you want to go to the gym and your sports bra/heart monitor is in the wash? Then what? How will you monitor your heart and do whatever the other half of that ‘invention’ does?……What about another new ‘invention’ that is really two existing inventions slapped together. I don’t know what they call it, but it’s a toilet paper dispenser with a port for your Mp3 player. So, you can listen to your tunes no matter where you ‘go’. But what if the guy in the stall next to you is trying to listen to his I-poddy-paper-player? Or worse, you accidentally drop your player? Ich! Does anyone even need an Ipoddy-paper-player to keep up with his or her tunes in the bathroom anyway?I kind of like the quiet in the bathroom. Is a good place for a man to sit and think; especially if you don’t have anything to read.Then there are these smarty-pants kids who have come up with a ring tone for their cell phones that their parents, teachers and other adults can not hear. It seems some guy in England found out that people in their teens and younger can hear a higher pitched tone than mature adults can. They tried to market it as a teen-dispenser. They would play it at a high volume where they didn’t want any teenagers. I thought about getting one for the house for a while.Then an enterprising, I mean a sneaky kid, figured out how to get phone calls without anybody knowing about it. At first, it might seem like a good idea. These kids aren’t bothering you with their insufferable rap ringtones anymore. Have you ever tried to converse with your teenage son (or daughter) and they have their cell phone in their pocket set on vibrate?You are trying to get them to concentrate on an important family issue, like where did they leave the remote or have you seen Daddy’s checkbook? And suddenly they make a face similar to the one you remember from their ‘poddy’ training days. They completely tune you out without so much as an ‘excuse me’, and start immediately into an irritating conversation with one of their peers.Ä’up?! Dude! Really? My Bad! ‚Ä’Cha! Nah’. ‚Ä’Cha!’ and so on. And you are left without any acknowledgement whatsoever, no respect, no checkbook and worst of all, no TV remote.Which by the way, is one of the best inventions. Ever. Cha!