Our New Invention

Thor: If you can find something missing in the world, like fireant proof dog dishes or idiot-proof jetpacks, and figure a way to deliver it, then you can be rich. We don't need any more money, but there's still the reward of a public service well done. Tyr and I have cooked up quite a few inventions and haven't bothered to patent or market a single one. We offer them to whoever has more ambition than we do (and between the two us there's less ambition than in that old dog on the Hee Haw show) to make whatever capital they can. We don't even want honorable mention.

To wit: Friend, how often have you been walking along, paying a sensible amount of attention to where you're going and what you're stepping in, only to have some oblivious clod run directly into you because his two working synapses were fully engaged with his cellphone? Nobody's perfect, and everyone fades out once in a while, but this cell phone business is on a whole new plane.. The old adage is "If you automate a mess, all you get is an automated mess". Has the introduction of the cellphone done anything for us except enable the occasionally dim to be exceptionally dumb for extended peroids of time? Everyone has a story about the cellphone idiot who made a half-mile of cars wait through three extra red lights. And we know that in every single case, without exception, the cell conversation registered ZERO on the importance meter. And that's only because importance meters don't have negative numbers on their scales.

Somehow, at least to me, it's worse when cell obnoxiousness is committed amongst pedestrians in crowded areas like malls and campuses. Friend, don't you wish you had a solution? Enter the RatlPatl (TM). It's the kind of satisfying solution you'd expect from a guy who sleeps with a warhammer. Imagine one of those novelty giant fork and spoon sets like you'd hang on the wall of your kitchen if you had less taste. Now imagine throwing away the fork and that the spoon is made out of high impact synthetic rubber. Add a wrist strap and some grip tape and you'll have the idea. And you get the idea. Don't you?

ZzzwishPOP! And that loud bitch's phone is on the other side of the food court. With practice, a guy ought to be able to snick a phone from between ear and hand without attracting the young offender's attention. Heck, she's so lost in "thought" she may not notice for two or three minutes. It makes you feel all warm and tingly just thinking about it. "Does that rattle deserve a paddle? Reach for the RatlPatl!"

The LX model should come with a taser feature.

Tyr: Sweet. A public service and an aerobic workout. And what are they going to do? Sick the mall cops on you? Your new fan club should take care that problem, but if not, we have an invention for that too: Get one of those plunger dart guns and glue Stridex pads to the plunger parts. Five Stridex pads will pretty much completely erase the average mall cop.

I'm proposing a new sport: RatlPatl Mall Golf. Pick a place with a high concentration of airheads, say Clair's Boutique or Bed, Bath and Beyond, so that every player has a good selection of cell phones from which to choose. A "stroke" is any whacking of (or at) a cell phone. If the cell phone strikes another cell phone user, Player may move himself to that location. Otherwise, he must remain where he is and try again. The object is to work one's way, by means of the fewest strokes, from Claire's to Victoria's Secret. Victoria is its own reward, as we always say in Valhalla. I'm not sure how to work it in, but it ought to count extra points if Player lobs a phone into someone's Orange Julius. If you, Friend, have any ideas for improving the game, or just rounding out the rules, please submit them as a comment. After we work out all the kinks, we could have a webpage devoted entirely to the new sport.

In summary: Now how much would you pay?

Prosit,
Tyr and Thor