Here’s to 100 Billion People Beating a Path to Your Door
My wife and I drove out to the Pasadena Convention Center on Labor Day weekend to see the Invention Convention, an event described by staff writer Lynn Simross in View a few days earlier.
Simross had singled out a better mousetrap, which is supposed to appeal to environmentalists because the mouse is taken alive. How the environment can be improved by returning mice to their habitat I can’t quite see.
However, as Emerson said, “if a man can . . . make a better mousetrap . . . the world will make a beaten path to his door.”
Since some futurists hold that our inventive technology can keep pace with our booming population (a theory I doubt), I hoped to find some inventions that might make life livable for the future’s 100 billion people.
We did find a wind turbine that looked somewhat like a daisy, a wave generator that generates power from ocean waves, an electric car and a solar hot dog machine (saves us from polluting charcoal lighter fluid).
Except for those and a few others that I didn’t look at or didn’t understand, I saw few inventions that promised the human species a better future.
One booth offered “instant mind massage”--a 15-minute session for $5. A woman was reclining in one of three canvas lounge chairs, evidently having her mind massaged by headphones.
A sign said: “Ecstasy--A trance or frenzy thought to attend prophetic, mystic or poetic inspiration.”
Down the aisle a man sat idly behind a display of doggie sunglasses--that is, sunglasses for dogs. I suppose he could have explained how one keeps sunglasses on a dog, but I didn’t ask.
Nearby was a flush saver--a couple of blocks that one places in the toilet bowl to save water. Of course water conservation has to be considered ecologically correct.
Another bathroom gadget whose purpose evidently was to favor the elderly and to keep peace between the sexes was a device by which one raises and lowers a toilet seat by pushing a pedal. It has a rather functional look and would not enhance the appearance of a chic bathroom, but some might find it helpful.
There was a plastic baby bath whose advantages I did not take the time to discover; also, a blouse that makes it possible for a mother to nurse her baby in public without exposing herself. Both of these wonders have burst on the world too late for us.
Perhaps the most trivial among the inventions were a putting aid, an edible golf club (the head is a chocolate chip cookie) and an earring organizer--one hangs one’s earrings on it.
Yet another mousetrap was called Robocat. It was a shiny black plastic or ceramic machine that looked somewhat like a crouching black cat. It could either kill a mouse or take him alive, as one wished. I don’t know whether I could deal with the moral alternatives of that choice.
Attractive young men and women stood in front of every booth, handing out leaflets and eager to answer any questions. It was soon obvious that they were more interested in catching investors or dealers than in retail customers. They seemed especially gracious to me and my wife. I suppose I look like a man who might be interested in investing in a better mousetrap.
Here and there among the crowd I saw older men thoughtfully strolling among the exhibits. They looked like college professors emeritus. I suspected that they were inventors, checking the competition. None of them seemed enthralled.
I stopped momentarily to examine something called the Tennis-C-Retriever. This is a C-shaped device that one attaches to the frame of his tennis racket to pluck tennis balls from the court, thereby saving the player from having to bend over. The C was attached to a Velcro plate that sticks to fiber strips glued to the racket; the C’s Velcro inside curve picks up the tennis balls.
I have tried to understand how this device will serve humanity. The leaflet suggests it “would be beneficial to all players, from those who are physically disadvantaged to those trying to retrieve a tennis ball that lies just over the net.”
I can see that if one plays tennis in a wheelchair, the Tennis-C-Retriever might be useful. However, why can’t the guy on the other side of the net pick up the ball in his court?
The trouble with most of the inventions is that there was no need for them to begin with. Why do we need wind turbines that look like daisies? Why do we need a solar-powered hot dog cooker? Why do we need a toilet seat raiser? Why do dogs need sunglasses?
What we really need is a videocassette recorder than any fool can work.
Where’s the genius who can give us that?
