By golly, it could be a Wonderful World
Since jmb suggested I was, by dint of recent postings, becoming excessively curmudgeonly (I’m not, really. I’m the sweetest, most charming, not to mention stunningly handsome man of my age you could come across; I also have a really tiny ego) I have decided what with this crappy, rainy, Labor Day weekend, I am going to be more upbeat and positive.
And positive I am. For one thing, as all the little wretches are returning to school on Tuesday, I’m heading off on a couple of weeks’ vacation (more about that later) and have completed all my tasks (writing contracts and others) prior to taking off. So, I feel good about life.
By the way, as an aside, how many others feel that little twinge of back-to-school anxiety on this weekend, even though they’ve been away for years or decades? Just wondering if that was just me, or if it was universal.
Back to my positive and upbeat blog. What I am looking at is the fact (not stemming from curmudgeonliness but considering reality) that there are things in this life that maybe we should have, but don’t. For all of our vast technologies, life might be even sweeter, or at least more sensible if we had the following ten things:
1. Thinking aids: Sort of like hearing-aids. A device you could attach to the side of your head during times of mental fatigue, just to give a boost. Less addictive and more healthful than cocaine, your thinking aid could get you through that tough exam or legal interrogation without stress.
2. Mouse flavoured cat food: Vermin wreak untold havoc in granaries and food sources around the world. Cats like to eat mice. I’m amazed that the Tender Vittles folk haven’t considered this one.
3. A gender specific toilet seat: Your bathroom would have a sex detector as you enter and approach the toilet. If you are male, the seat will rise. If you are female, it will stay stationary. Mind you, if you are male and have that old ‘other’ need, I guess you’d have to punch that info in.
4. Lighted toilet bowl: Not to be excessively obsessed with potty functions, but why not have, especially for males, a faint light in the bowl for neat and tidy 3 a.m. functioning?
5. ‘You’re busted!’ ignition function: If we are really serious about eliminating the nightmare of intoxicated drivers and the havoc they cause in the lives of the innocent, and we should be, we should also be prepared to get tough. I think we need a device that not only locks the ignition if a drunk tries to start the vehicle up, it should also strap the guy behind the wheel and immediately alert the police who can bust him on the spot.
6. Bras with Velcro strips instead of hooks: Don’t think this needs to be explained in more detail as to the wherefores and whys.
7. Boredom beater: When trapped in a tiresome and tedious conversation, why suffer? Your boredom beater will emit a continuing blast of white noise that will render the verbal pollution of the tiresome jerk silent. He will flap his gums and you will hear nothing. Don’t worry about not responding, because bores aren’t at all interested in what you have to say, anyway.
8.Star Trek Transporters for real: Love to travel but hate the process? Afraid of terrorists? Dislike sharing an aluminum tube with obnoxious drunks, assholes, crying babies and people with questionable personal freshness? Of course you do. We all do. So, why aren’t our geeks really working to make Transporters a reality? Imagine, you would just go to a place, pay the conventional fee you’d play for a disgusting plane trip, and there you would be in a trice, in Hawaii or Marrakech. Your luggage could be transported at the same time.
9. Income tax lotteries: Everybody hates the taxman, and for good reason. The bastards rob us and put money into causes we don’t necessarily espouse. Consequently, everybody from Leona Helmseley (shudder) to the guy across the street is tempted to cheat. This is galling for the revenuers. Well, the answer is simple. People spend huge sums on lotteries in which they have one chance out of 10 zillion of winning. Why not a tax lottery with good odds in which say the odds were one out of 10,000. The bad guys would still collect their filthy lucre, and the rest of us would have fun playing?
10. Print a big banner headline in every newspaper everywhere that states simply: ‘Life is lethal. Get over it.’ Then there will be no more conflicting articles telling us on a daily basis that everything we’re doing is bad for our health and we should cut it out. Of course ‘everything’ is bad for our health, or we would live forever.
If you have any suggestions of your own, I’d love to hear them.
And positive I am. For one thing, as all the little wretches are returning to school on Tuesday, I’m heading off on a couple of weeks’ vacation (more about that later) and have completed all my tasks (writing contracts and others) prior to taking off. So, I feel good about life.
By the way, as an aside, how many others feel that little twinge of back-to-school anxiety on this weekend, even though they’ve been away for years or decades? Just wondering if that was just me, or if it was universal.
Back to my positive and upbeat blog. What I am looking at is the fact (not stemming from curmudgeonliness but considering reality) that there are things in this life that maybe we should have, but don’t. For all of our vast technologies, life might be even sweeter, or at least more sensible if we had the following ten things:
1. Thinking aids: Sort of like hearing-aids. A device you could attach to the side of your head during times of mental fatigue, just to give a boost. Less addictive and more healthful than cocaine, your thinking aid could get you through that tough exam or legal interrogation without stress.
2. Mouse flavoured cat food: Vermin wreak untold havoc in granaries and food sources around the world. Cats like to eat mice. I’m amazed that the Tender Vittles folk haven’t considered this one.
3. A gender specific toilet seat: Your bathroom would have a sex detector as you enter and approach the toilet. If you are male, the seat will rise. If you are female, it will stay stationary. Mind you, if you are male and have that old ‘other’ need, I guess you’d have to punch that info in.
4. Lighted toilet bowl: Not to be excessively obsessed with potty functions, but why not have, especially for males, a faint light in the bowl for neat and tidy 3 a.m. functioning?
5. ‘You’re busted!’ ignition function: If we are really serious about eliminating the nightmare of intoxicated drivers and the havoc they cause in the lives of the innocent, and we should be, we should also be prepared to get tough. I think we need a device that not only locks the ignition if a drunk tries to start the vehicle up, it should also strap the guy behind the wheel and immediately alert the police who can bust him on the spot.
6. Bras with Velcro strips instead of hooks: Don’t think this needs to be explained in more detail as to the wherefores and whys.
7. Boredom beater: When trapped in a tiresome and tedious conversation, why suffer? Your boredom beater will emit a continuing blast of white noise that will render the verbal pollution of the tiresome jerk silent. He will flap his gums and you will hear nothing. Don’t worry about not responding, because bores aren’t at all interested in what you have to say, anyway.
8.Star Trek Transporters for real: Love to travel but hate the process? Afraid of terrorists? Dislike sharing an aluminum tube with obnoxious drunks, assholes, crying babies and people with questionable personal freshness? Of course you do. We all do. So, why aren’t our geeks really working to make Transporters a reality? Imagine, you would just go to a place, pay the conventional fee you’d play for a disgusting plane trip, and there you would be in a trice, in Hawaii or Marrakech. Your luggage could be transported at the same time.
9. Income tax lotteries: Everybody hates the taxman, and for good reason. The bastards rob us and put money into causes we don’t necessarily espouse. Consequently, everybody from Leona Helmseley (shudder) to the guy across the street is tempted to cheat. This is galling for the revenuers. Well, the answer is simple. People spend huge sums on lotteries in which they have one chance out of 10 zillion of winning. Why not a tax lottery with good odds in which say the odds were one out of 10,000. The bad guys would still collect their filthy lucre, and the rest of us would have fun playing?
10. Print a big banner headline in every newspaper everywhere that states simply: ‘Life is lethal. Get over it.’ Then there will be no more conflicting articles telling us on a daily basis that everything we’re doing is bad for our health and we should cut it out. Of course ‘everything’ is bad for our health, or we would live forever.
If you have any suggestions of your own, I’d love to hear them.
Labels: life would be so much brighter
posted by Ian Lidster at
1:58 PM
13 Comments:
Some of those are very good!
Seeing we still have to fly the conventional way, a kids free zone would be good. You know, First Class, Business Class, No kids Class, & cattle- er Economy class.
I love kids... but not earshatteringly screaming while I am enclosed in a smallish metal cylinder being propelled through space, by goodness knows what miracle flight entails.
hahahahaha
some good'uns, as meggie sez, including her own ;)
once those drunks are busted, why not prohibit their driving for life?
i'd ban all private vehicles in towns/cities, replaced with those moving sidewalks and star trek transporters you mention, then place/enforce pollution standards on commercial vehicles
I need the first one right now - it might help me think of another invention.
How about the drunk driver buster admistering a mist of some medication which provides instant sobriety?
I wish the heating/air conditioning unit would also control the humidity in your house.
In regards to the "back to school" nerves...I still get them, as a teacher. This year was particularly bad for some reason. Hmm. Maybe I need a new job.
And as for the mouse flavored cat food...someone would have to check it and make sure it was really mouse flavored. Eww.
Maybe I don't need a new job that badly. ;)
#5 is just plain ESSENTIAL and #6 is for more than boys (of all ages) with fumbling fingers; it would also be great for the yo-yo dieter and her ever-changing quantities of back fat.
All that said, I still suffer from back-to-school anxiety even though back-to-school sometimes improves my life now. Being a student or teacher virtually every year until I turned 40 (and once again when I was 42) might be the cause. It's part of my DNA now.
Lots of good upbeat suggestions here.
I have to tell you why the velcro bra thing won't work, even though it sounds good both to men and to women. The velcro stuff picks up all the threads from fabric so it often sticks, especially to knits. Imagine trying to take off a sweater while it's all caught up in the velcro band of the bra. Too bad.
Having just returned on a plane I am all for teleporting. That should be a top priority.
Always good reading here, curmudgeonly or not.
Have a great vacation.
regards
jmb
These are good Ian...perhaps you are in the wrong business? LOL
I like #8 the best - so many times I have traveled and my luggage arrived
later...especially from Jamaica. Their runway is a heap scarier than most so teleporting would be ideal.
A lit toilet -now that has possibilities too...love your sense of humor Ian.
Ian,
Love your list!!!!
And btw, I passed by your neck of the woods on my vacation, but didn't get a chance to stop in BC. I think that area of North America is breathtakingly beautiful and I MUST come back and visit BC!
Cheers,
Deb
Before anything else, curmudgeonly is good. Who wants to read "everything is sweet and little butterflies and chirping birds populate my life" blogs....
As for the you're busted ignition function, here in Quebec people who are busted driving drunk often have to have a device installed where, in order to get the car going, they have to blow in a tube. Any alcohol and the car doesn't start. Apparently, unfortunately, it's not terribly accurate so you might just have had your morning coffee and it still says you're drunk. Which is sort of funny in an evil way.
And obviously, they have to catch you drunk first...
I must say that I personally was loving the darker posts. What that says about me, I'm not sure, but as a reader, I'd love to have you just be real and not worry about what I want you to post. CS said something similar to me when I was apologizing for a darker post. There is no such thing as a life without pain -- maybe I'm missing something, but I believe that if we don't acknowledge it (without hopefully getting lost to it) that it will just continue to rear its ugly head until we do. So John Keats of me, I know. Cheers!
These are wonderful ideas, Ian, except the velcro bra closures. Who really wants to hear what sounds like ripping skin while undressing?
I have also wondered about mouse-flavored catfood. Most cats of my acquaintance seem to prefer the killing game to the meal, though. Apparently rodent does NOT taste like chicken.
are you being transported on your vacation?
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