More Inventive Than Ben Franklin..Because I'm an Idiot
We seem to be incredibly fond of lists. Lists of places to travel to. Books to read, and movies to watch. Hipster cafes to take food porn pictures in. Someday, when I’m a Mature Grown Up, I’ll actually make grocery lists. For now, I make lists of things that make me happy, usually when I have what some would call a “laundry list” of other things to do. In my defense, I don’t know a single person in his right mind who really makes laundry lists. I can’t be the only person who operates on a “Laundry Today, or No Pants Tomorrow” basis, right?
I swear, half of the ads in my Facebook feed alone are lists of “37 Things I Need to Read RIGHT NOW.” I’m sure they mostly exist to give me “38 Reasons to Hate Myself When I’m 39 and Still Working on Things I Swore I’d Do By 20.”
Kids make wish lists before Christmas. Hopefully not just ones made up of Amazon links to expensive headphones. And yet, most commonly our lives are filled with to-do lists. Post-it notes stuck onto the refrigerator, checklists written in black pen on lined notepads, colour-coordinated planners with inspirational quotes and pictures of sunsets on them. Perhaps text in beautiful, minimalistically designed apps that hopefully get a second time - other than that one Monday morning when we decided to get our life together.
The items on these lists vary, of course - we don’t all get to “Transfer 300K into account,” or “Go count Amazonian rainforest beetles” Then “I Have My Shit Together” Monday ends and Tuesday comes around.
““Send email to Jane in HR,”
“Revise paper,”
“Pay rent,”
“Think of great startup idea,”
“Change cell data plan.”
“Buy toilet paper,”
“Give up on great startup idea,”
“Buy cheap vodka.”
”
Let me tell you, Elementary-School-Masha was REALLY big on the “Think of Great Startup Idea.” She was going to be a Real Life Inventor, you see. The ideas kept coming, admittedly of varied nature. From truly original to bloody useless to slightly concerning.
“Mirrors that let you see the back of your head!”
“Crayons, but, but they ERASE!”
“Seriously, Mama. Like a rocket ship but…(half an hour later) Not that complicated!”
One such “invention” that particularly sticks in my memory was some contraption that would make slicing mangoes easier, by using an oval-shaped cutter separate the pit. I’m willing to bet that I’d also thought of some snazzy name for it, but sure that it was awful enough to make me want to slap myself. And my makeup looks REALLY nice today.
Until a few years ago, filing for and receiving patents was a fairly regular part of my father’s work. Nowadays, patents are devious little creatures that make my law homework oodles of confusing, but at 6 years old, I was very intrigued by them. Probably tired by my endless questions, my father explained them briefly to me as “Something that means you invented something.” 6-year-old, gap-toothed-Masha was THRILLED. A Real Invention?!
“You know what you should invent next, Papa? A time machine!”
For some time after that, I regularly asked about his progress on this front, absolutely bamboozled by the lack of snappy progress on the whole “Sell Time Machines at Best Buy” thing.
At some point, I stopped expecting to walk out with a time machine next time I went to fix my laptop. I guess, somewhere along the line, ten years passed, hair-feathers went out of style, and Masha heard the phrase “Time is Money” one too many times. Want a time machine? Go to Business School. So, “Think of fruit-slicer-thing” was replaced by “Read about Call Options” on Masha’s to-do list. (Don’t worry, the “Buy Cheap Vodka” part stuck around.)
But did Masha stop inventing?
Oh hell no.
Some of the best-adopted inventions allow us to avoid unnecessary work. I guess I’m just living on another level over here.
I’m seriously skilled at inventing ways to avoid - wait for it - NECESSARY work. So groundbreaking, we can make in infomercial about it.
“Hey! You!
Are you tired of feeling guilty? Tired of sitting at your desk, surrounded by a concerning amount of empty coffee mugs, fiddling with your pen, contemplating whether penguins have knees, and eyeing that Facebook tab? Dreading that Thing You REALLY Have to Do?
Well boy do I have news for you. It doesn’t have to be so hard! With the power of endless task-invention, you can lose the guilt FAST, and keep it off FOREVER.
With the power of endless invention, you, my friend, are FREE.
FREE to go check your email!
FREE to update your LinkedIn!
FREE to go clean your room! Who cares that it’s already more sterile than a horse mated with a donkey? Not me! You’re the one that’s acting like an ass.
You’re FREE to colour-code your Google calendar!
To check your email! Again!
FREE to go draw a Pinterest-Worthy habit tracker with a PENGUIN on it!
But wait, there’s MORE.
The power of endless invention comes with a Hundred-Percent Money Back Guarantee!
In the future, your credit card will get handed RIGHT BACK TO YOU! After it gets denied. Again. ”
So, I’m also required to tell you that the power of endless invention comes with some minor side effects of self-deprecation, disappointing your parents, and searching for ways to do three hours of work in twenty minutes.
Fun fact: Enough cow manure can produce enough methane to spontaneously combust. With the power of endless invention, you’ll learn how to type absolute bullshit fast enough to set your keyboard on fire.
Time machine or not, Masha’s just as bamboozled. It’s amazing how long it takes to complete something you’re not working on.
A little while ago, in some retail store, I stumbled upon a box containing that very mango-cutting-contraption I’d been so proud to invent all those years ago. I’m sure my name for it was WAY cooler, but oh well. Next to it was a rather strange device. Some sort of 3-in-1 avocado-slicer for ten bucks. Now, it had never occured to me that I could be bad enough at slicing avocados to need some invention to help me do it. And yet, it never occured to me that I could be bad enough at slicing my time to bother inventing even MORE ways to ensure I never have enough of it.
So. Dear Masha. You didn’t buy the avocado invention. You don’t need to make perfect little avocado slices to make Instagram-worthy toast. You also don’t need to invent the need to spend hours slicing and colour coding your time, making a Google-calendar prettier than you’ll ever be. No matter how prettily you cut up avocados, they oxidize and tarnish. It’s not as if you won’t do the same. You know what we do to prevent aging avocados? We put lemon juice on them. So go edit your goddamn book before it’s too late. I’m handing you the lemon juice: this might sting a little.
