Dim Bulbs
December 29, 2003
Cartoonists used to illustrate people having great ideas by showing light bulbs shining brightly over their heads. These days, those would be 15-watters.
Very often, in the past, when somebody asked "Where did you come up with that idea?," the person being asked was an author, a scientist or an inventor. Heaven only knows how much more great stuff Thomas Edison would have come up with if he hadn't had to stop every ten minutes to answer that particular question. But that was then and this, God help us, is now.
These days, the question is rarely intended to be complimentary. For instance, haven't we all wondered at some time or another who came up with the notion of skin-piercing? I mean, who woke up one fine morning and decided that it wasn't enough that people put holes in their ears, when there were all those noses, tongues and nipples, just going to waste? More to the point, how did he get that goofy notion off the ground? Who would ever have guessed that there would be so many masochists looking for a place to spend their money? It makes me wonder if I could make a decent living going around offering to hit these sickos with a sharp stick.
For those hardy souls not satisfied with having their bodies punctured in just a few places, we have tattoos. Now that's a really madcap idea. Even if you set aside the pain factor, as if you could possibly ignore the fact that a very sharp needle is cutting into your flesh several thousand times, you have to consider the end result. After all that agony, you wind up with pictures on your body that no sane person would ever consider hanging on his wall.
But, I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised at the wackiness of human beings. We are the species, after all, that will inevitably say, after finally finding our car keys or our reading glasses, "It's always the last place you look!" Well, yes, as a matter of fact it is, because, whether you've searched in two places or two hundred, once you find what you're hunting for, you stop looking!
This is not to suggest that nobody ever has a good idea. Just last week, my wife had a doozy. We were discussing all the manufacturing jobs that were being lost to American workers because the owners were moving their factories to third world countries. Her quaint notion was that, from now on, the bosses would all have to move to wherever on earth they moved their plants. So, good-bye, Grosse Pointe; hello, Bangladesh.
©2003 Burt Prelutsky
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