I love ingenious twists on mundane items. Especially the little ones that often go unnoticed and certainly go unheralded. I guess my question is why don't we love the people behind them.
Sure the flash of clarity behind - I don't know, say the spork - that brilliant light that went off in the mind of whoever invented the spork may have just that: one single wonderful brilliant spark of genius. Maybe that person never had another good idea. But I, for one, love them for it.
I wonder if it was the same person who came up with the name spork forever obscuring their own identity or if the name came from someone else unrecognized. If we had a clever name for the toilet right off then Mr. Thomas Crapper wouldn't be the funny little trivial pursuit answer that it is today.
Perhaps it was the clever porcelain design or just the nature of the invention, but crapper never really stuck or at least not in the right circles. In the end, his name wasn't heralded as it s
hould be and only came to mean, well you know that already. But what about Susan. Her name stuck and along with it came Lazy. Why not the Clever Susan or the Crafty Susan? In the end, maybe it is better to be looked over by history.So, I don't know whose ingenious mind gave us upside down squeeze bottles of ketchup and mayo, but they will have to make room on the genius shelf in my fridge. This year we have the salad spritzer. Spray on salad dressing. Genius. Thank you, whoever you are.
2 comments:
I'm guessing that wouldn't work with Thousand Islands or Ranch?
Remember when they had the long envelopes at the Royal Bank. In order to deposit your paycheck you had to awkwardly open and insert your cheque in the narrow end of the envelope. It was a change that was long overdue when they put the opening on the long side of the envelope but it made me happy.
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