I got this little massager that's about the size of a mouse. A computer mouse, not the animal that crawls around inside your walls. It's got one big button on it and if you press it, the whole thing shakes really fast and will supposedly loosen up all the kinks in your muscles. The folks who sell this thing would have us all believe that everyone is as tense as Carrot-Top in those ATT&T commercials. I haven't had much use for it, but I have noticed that when I watch TV I can press it against my forehead and the images on the screen get all wavy. It's pretty cool. But if you do it too much, you get a headache. There was no warning on the box, though. I wonder if I should sue.

Anyway, it's something to do when I'm bored.

They say necessity is the mother of invention, and in most cases I reckon that's so. But sometimes I wonder how much stuff was invented by people who just didn't have anything else to do.

I mean, some things are just obvious. Like the light bulb, burglar alarms, atom bombs: You know, someone wants to read at night, so they think up a light bulb (although, since there were no light bulbs, I wonder what kind of picture appeared over his head). Or someone gets his house broken into and he imagines a burglar alarm, or someone is fighting the advancing tide of Japanese imperialists, and he imagines being able to kill a billion of them all at once. You need something, you think it up, and then you make it. It's a natural process.

But whoever thought of, say, ketchup? All it is is mushed up tomatoes mixed with salt and sugar. It's not like there is a huge lack of tomatoes. They're everywhere. Did someone really like tomatoes, or really dislike them? They're already ON your hamburger, you invent ketchup, and then keep putting them on your hamburger? What's the point?

And what about pickles? Did someone really like cucumbers and just think they would be greatly improved by soaking them for a year in brine?

Whoever thought up the Slinky? The neck-tie? Maple Syrup? Those party favor things that unroll when you blow into them?

I imagine at some point there was some guy whose job it was to test stuff. They didn't know what was poison and what wasn't, so this guy probably had people bring him stuff and set it on his desk:

"'Mornin', Ed, whattaya got for me today?"
"I don't know, I found it leaking out of a tree. It smells ok."
"You eat any?"
"No, but Ma did."
"Did it kill her?"
"Nope."
"OK, leave it with me, we'll see what I can make out of it."
"Can you have it ready by Saturday? Ma's cookin' up a mess of flapjacks."
"I'll see what I can do. Next!"

And then a second guy comes in with a basket:

"'Mornin', Fred, what's this?"
"Not sure. I just dug a bunch of 'em up out of the ground."
"Have you eaten one?"
"Yep. Last night."
"Feeling sick?"
"Nope. It was kind of bland though."
"Well, I'll try to crinkle-cut one and deep fry it, or maybe mash one up with butter and milk. Come see me next week."

I guess inventing food isn't the same thing as inventing cars and lightbulbs, though. I still think we could benefit by taking a bunch of scientist guys and locking them all in a room with a TV and potato chips and just see what they come up with.