My Dumb Inventions

I can’t claim that I invented the poor man’s remote. Back in the 1970’s there may have been other poor men who did what I did. I took some fishing tackle and strung it up the wall of the living room, along the ceiling, and down to our TV set, where I hooked it to the channel-changer and volume switch (I have a very tolerant wife). With a mere pull of the tackle, I could adjust the volume and change the channel without getting out of my chair.

I also gave some serious thought to the tragedy of kids drowning in swimming pools. My potential invention was a belt that children would wear any time they were around a pool. It would automatically inflate when it came into contact with water. The problem was, if the child was heavier above the water, it could turn him upside down. I dropped that one.

Then there was the “Air bag T-shirts.” They wouldn’t work, because annoying people would hit the wearer on the chest.

I did have an idea that would stop cars from having head-on collisions. It was the “V” shaped front and rear bumpers. These would protrude at least ten feet in the front and at the rear into sharp points, so that two cars that had them fitted couldn’t have a head-on, even if they wanted to. There were a couple of problems with the idea. Parking wouldn’t be easy, and rear-ending a car that hadn’t been fitted wouldn’t be a nice sight. Side-on collisions would be a problem too.

Then there was my digital-clock-combination-smoke-detector. The user would know that his battery went dead because his clock stopped running. That would be a life-saver.

Millions are off work because they have bad backs from lifting. My belt buckle that snapped down into an “L” shape fixed that. This meant that when a worker picked up a heavy box, he puts it onto the clipped down belt buckle. This would result in straightening, rather than bending of the spine.

There was also the grass-green paint, mixed with a flexible rubber, so that it could be sprayed onto lawns. The lawn would die when it was sprayed, but it would stay the same length. This would result in two things. First, no one would ever have to mow another lawn. And second result would be that I would be murdered by professional gardeners, lawn mower manufacturers and lawn-mower salesmen.