You Can't Teach Inspiration

Sometimes I think Genius should scrap the whole college education plan and loll about in his bedroom, inventing. Sure, it doesn't pay very well. But it doesn't cost a lot, either. He's a scavenger, that boy. When we were picking up the clutter for the impending visit of his gasoline-bomb crony, we found a mysterious object on the kitchen counter, in the area where Hick tosses items he has no use for, but can't bear to discard.

"What's this thing? It looks like some kind of battery pack."

"Mom. That's the light pack for the cap you gave Dad for Christmas. The one where the lights clipped onto the bill. He broke the clip."

"So it's no good anymore? It can't be strapped on a cap as a headlight to feed the goats after dark?"

"Not really. It's junk."

"Toss it."

"WAIT! Give it to me. I'll take the LED lights out of it. I can use them."

He's a cannibalizer, that boy. Bits of wire here. Switches there. Relays, whatever they are. Circuit board thingies. It's beyond me. He has a knack for creating things he needs. At least he's dealing in electronic items, not digging up body parts and zapping life into a Frankenstein.

He's selective in his creations, though. He's been developing his own film in the kitchen sink for a couple of weeks. He showed me a somewhat sepia, somewhat black-and-white print of Mount Rushmore that he took on vacation two years ago. As he was extending his arm, the photo was backlit by a floor lamp. "Wow! Look at that! It's so cool!" I turned to admire his handiwork. He was right.

"You need to get one of those frames that light up the picture. I saw them on The Celebrity Apprentice a couple of years ago."

"Those things are expensive."

"Make your own."

"I could totally do that. But where would I put it? I don't have room on my desk. I'm not going to drill into the wall to hang it. I'm leaving home in six months. That would be a waste."

So much for that idea. It's like he had it all worked out. Designed it, built it, framed the pic, and decided that there was no place for it. Easy as pie.

Not all of his inventions are gems. There was the idea of the car that converts into a plane. You know. For quick trips to Walmart. Never mind that there would have to be landing areas and parking places for planes. And flight plans. And operator's licenses. Those details were of no concern to him. Not his fault if folks didn't look where they were going, and flaming car-planes plummeted from the sky onto the unsuspecting citizenry. (There really is such a car-plane, you know. I've seen one somewhere like a Hammacher Schlemmer catalog.)

Likewise, his plan to deliver mail to individual homes through vacuum tubes like those used at the bank drive-thru was not well-thought-out. First, the expense of digging underground tube tunnels. Then the question of how the canisters would know where to go. And collisions at tube intersections. And where to store all the canisters, And what about the lack of pressure if everybody decided they wanted their mail at the same time. And how to clear a clogged tube. And would there be giant tubes from postal hubs to local post offices. The only positive I could see was the opportunity to avoid entering the dead-mouse-smelling post office.

I'm sure Genius is not the only inventor to conjure up duds. Surely even George Washington Carver came up with a couple of yucky peanut recipes. Thomas Edison produced 99 % perspiration. Leonardo da Vinci cobbled those unbalanced water-walking shoes. And still, they did all right for themselves.

I doubt any of them burned their arm on the oven heating element reaching in to get a tray of potato skins.