Who Wants That?

I am fascinated with Do-Dads. I mean those things that hang on the end-caps of shelves in Wal-Mart, Lowes, and Home Depot. They intrigue me. They call my name. In the tradition of P.T. Barnum, they lure me like the sirens seduced Odysseus' and Jason's sailors in the Iliad and the Odyssey.

Once these "must haves" arrive at my house, they are fondled, admired, caressed and put on a shelf. Quietly they await the opportunity to save the world from some monster Unpeeled Potato, Scale-Incrusted Shower Door, or the Rabid Mole that pushes mountain-size piles of dirt up to blemish my Southern Living-perfect lawn.

Realistically, most of these inventions will wind up on the odds-and-ends table at the mega-garage sale my wife holds in the name of "down-sizing." My treasured Do-Dads will pass to another unsuspecting soul for just pennies on the dollar.

But you have to give credit to the inventor who traversed the gauntlet and convinced some company to mass produce his idea and foist it on the unsuspecting public.

Thomas Edison once said, “I only want to invent things that sell.” One statistic says 98 percent of all patented inventions never make enough money to recover the expenses of getting a patent? The inventor was deluded into thinking that if he/she could get a patent, surely someone would want to buy the product.

If you link to http://www.ipwatchdog.com/patentmuseum.html, you can see some of the strangest ideas at the Museum of Obscure Patents.

Fragrant water closet closer
US Patent No. 6,694,536
Issued February 24, 2004
This patent covers is a gas powered automatic toilet seat lowering device, which will undoubtedly bring peace and harmony to couples all over the globe! Immediately after explaining how women complain about the failure of men to lower a toilet seat after use, the inventor makes the parenthetical remark: "Never heard are complaints about women not putting the seat up after use!"

Dog umbrella

Ahhh, even I would pass on this.






Beerbrella
No comment needed for this non-drinker





Toy missile launcher
The gift no al-Qiada boy should be without.

Animal chastity belt
Does this really need an explanation?

Get the "Idea?" There are plenty more listed at the web-site. The inventor had an idea, pursued it, and spent the money to have it patented.

Having grown up in the South, we have many colloquialisms about life. Frequently I heard my father talk about somebody "riding a dead horse." Eventually I figured out he wasn't speaking literally.

On Dan Miller's web-site, I read about the tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed on from generation to generation. They say that when you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. In modern corporate America, the government, and some Christian organizations, "a whole range of far more advanced strategies are often employed," such as:

• Buying a stronger whip


• Threatening the horse with termination


• Appointing a committee to study the horse


• Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included


• Reclassifying the dead horse as "living impaired"


• Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse


• Harnessing several dead horses together to increase the speed


• Providing additional funding and/or training to increase the dead horse's performance


• Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse's performance


• Rewriting the minimum performance requirements for all horses.


• Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position
  
  

As Christ-follower, who has been a regular attendee of church, I frequently hear well-developed sermons which have little to do with the issues I'm dealing with in my life. The speaker is scholarly, his delivery smooth, the rationale solid. However, I leave the fellowship wanting more than the dead horse-topic of the week.

On occasion I have the opportunity to speak to other Christ-followers. I find myself seduced by the same temptation as the teachers I refer to. While something may be my pet-theological-baby of the moment, I have to ask the tough question; will it address the real-life issues in my audiences' life? Will they be challenged and changed? Perhaps my spiritual Do-Dad will not meet my listener's need.

If I'm riding a dead horse, it's time to dismount. To me, as an actor, teacher, and speaker, time is one of the most precious gifts an audience can entrust to me. To bore them or fail to meet their needs, is a capital crime. Better to be silent than waste the trust they have given me.