Read Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Weird Inventions Online
Authors: Bathroom Readers’ Institute
Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Weird Inventions (6 page)
A
can of beer rests on a table. A would-be drinker reaches out, anticipating frosty refreshment. But the top of the can extends upward, like a prairie dog peering out from its hole, then retracts, while three scuttling legs unfold from its base. Then the can shuffles away, leaving its victim frustrated and baffled, with his or her whistle tragically unwetted. It’s like a
Transformers
cartoon gone horribly awry.
A booze-induced hallucination? Nope. This is CanBot, the creation of amateur roboticist Ron Tajima and revealed to an unsuspecting world in 2011. CanBot, controlled with a modified Nintendo Wii remote, moves independently, either by walking upright or by rolling. The body of the can is filled with batteries, control circuits, and the servo motors that give it motion. Meaning that even if you can catch it, there’s no beer reward inside.
So why would anybody create such a thing? Tajima makes no claims to expanding the frontiers of robotics; CanBot is little more than an elaborate practical joke, perfect for scaring the bejeebers out of friends who’ve had a few beers already. In other words, it’s a high-tech variation on the old “spring-snakes in the can of mixed nuts” gag.
W
e can exhaust him…we have the technology…
In 1998, perhaps while buried under a pile of Thighmasters and Ab Belts and Bun Lifters purchased by phone during late-night infomercials, a young inventor decided the time was right for a single training outfit that would offer resistance everywhere, from head to toe. The idea was to turn every human movement into exercise, and every room into a gym, because the wearer would bring his workout with him, wherever he went.
Soon the inventor emerged from his sewing room with the Bionic Exersuit, a one-piece experiment in not-so-haute couture that wove taut rubber tubing from the neck down the arms and torso, and all the way to its attached footies. The Exersuit was blue and green and yellow, and ugly all over. Perhaps it was the outfit’s less-than-glamorous looks that kept more workout mavens from experiencing the joy (and, no doubt, increased fitness) that could only come from that little extra tug of resistance in the fingers every time the user grabbed a pen…or in the knees when he sat…or in the chest when he breathed in and out…
K
ids today are wild about drugs they aren’t supposed to take, like OxyContin and Four Loko, but when you try to get them to take a puff on their life-saving asthma inhalers, they simply can’t be bothered. Also, you can never get them to stop talking on their cradle handset corded phones. Right, parents?
Obviously that last part isn’t true, but should we ever find ourselves plagued by these kids today who love landlines and hate asthma medicine, some enterprising soul has already patented a solution: Phone Gas. It sounds like technology that somehow hides flatulence in a handset until a prankster can let it rip on an unsuspecting victim, which would be awesome. Instead, however, Phone Gas accomplishes the rather mundane task of blasting the user in the face with aerosol inhaler medication via a specially designed phone-shaped object that is not actually a phone.
Instead of allowing the user to conduct a conversation with a human being who might be able to explain the cloud of mist wafting out of the microphone end of the handset, Phone Gas offers a “pre-recorded message or music playing into the earpiece” until the user opens his mouth (“in awe or boredom”), at which point a “magic button” is pressed, thus unleashing the life saving spray that the user has hitherto refused to inhale. Patented in 1988, it hasn’t been a big seller, outside of
The Prisoner
re-creation societies.
G
iving pets a bath is the worst—dogs hate water and are prone to jumping out of the tub when they’re wet and covered in a mixture of grime and soap. Cats aren’t any better; used to bathing themselves with their tongues, they just don’t get it when you make them submit to a pool of standing water, and then they claw off all of your skin.
The Lavakan is an alternative to the heartbreak of pet baths: It’s a washing machine for cats and dogs. This industrial-strength machine soaps, rinses, and dries your pet in less than 30 minutes. The machine resembles a restaurant-grade dishwasher, or a tiny drive-through car wash, with a window so you can spy on your spooked pets. One of the inventors, Andres Díaz, claims that the 5-by-5-foot appliance can even reduce pet stress. “One of the dogs actually fell asleep during the wash,” he said. Cost: $20,000, but if you have that kind of cash to spend on a pet washing machine, you probably aren’t the kind of person who washes their own pets anyway.
M
uch as the theory of relativity has remained a constant in physics, the universe of poultry farming has always had its own go-to formula: chicken + food = a plump and tasty chicken. But what if the poultry population isn’t fattening up at a speed that’s fast enough for a farmer’s liking? Growth hormones may be the preferred method nowadays, but in 1981, someone came up with the idea of trickin’ chicken into eating at a hastier pace with the Dummy Chicken Farmer.
Using the less-than-impressive IQ of the chickens to their advantage, this faux farmer may look like a human, but in truth, it’s little more than a human-shaped bag of stuffing that hangs from a hook attached to its hat, traveling in a circular path around the chicken coop every three-and-a-half hours. It’s like a scarecrow, but one that moves without scaring the birds. In an effort to both fake out and freak out the fowl, the Dummy Chicken Farmer also has an audio system in its chest that blares out whatever sounds the (real) chicken farmer has deemed most likely to inspire the birds to keep filling their faces. As if it weren’t odd enough already, a bonus bit of inexplicability is the series of streamers which, based on the patent diagram, seem to be emerging from the dummy’s nether regions.
W
hen your formerly tight-cropped ‘do starts turning into a full-fledged mane, it’s clearly time to trim things back a bit. But when discussing the hair elsewhere on one’s body, there’s a bit more individual discretion as far as whether you’re going to take just a little off the top or go the Full Monty and make with a wholly-hairless look.
That’s where the Mudage Jolie Body Hair Thinner comes into play. Although described by the website Japan Trend Shop as “a handy device for men who don’t want to scare girls away with their chest rug, but are reluctant to dispense with their body hair altogether,” the Thinner is ultimately little more than a standard razor, featuring a stainless steel blade which helps with follicular manageability when run over your chest, underarms, arms, or legs. It’s worth noting, however, that nowhere is it suggested that the Thinner is optimal for undercarriage use. That’s not to say it couldn’t be, but you’ll, uh, probably want to take a bit more care if you go that route.
Y
ou’ve got to hand it to the mind behind Beach Boots, as it is a mind with the courage of its convictions.
See, the reason most folks go barefoot at the beach, despite the discomfort of walking across hot sand, isn’t just because wearing shoes can leave your feet sweaty and gritty—it’s because wearing shoes at the beach looks a little bit nerdy, like that time they photographed Nixon walking on the beach in a full suit, trying to look casual.
The inventor of Beach Boots, though, doesn’t let that stop him. You can almost hear his creative process playing out: “So you think it looks nerdy, wearing shoes on the beach? Well, how about clunky plastic buckle-up clodhoppers tricked out with battery-driven motors and caterpillar treads?”
And with a click of the toe-controlled switch, you’re tooling along the seaside in this unholy three-way hybrid of ski boots, roller skates, and a Sherman tank. Now, there are obvious utilitarian concerns: Will those mini-motors really propel the body weight of an average human? Is it wise to put spinning rotors so close to your extremities? And what’s the matter with flip-flops, anyway?
Wear with knee-high black socks for full effect.
M
aking coffee every morning is a total pain. Even one of those newfangled individual-cup machines takes a few minutes to do its thing, and cracking open a can of Red Bull requires vital seconds when you’re rushing to get out the door.
For those of us who can’t stop hitting the snooze button and don’t have time for a proper breakfast, let alone a latte, AeroShot Pure Energy could be the perfect morning eye-opener. It’s the creation of David Edwards, a professor at Harvard University who has also designed other inhalable products. His first foray into this weird industry was Le Whif, a no-calorie, light-as-air brand of chocolate that goes straight to your lungs instead of your hips.
Each AeroShot inhaler contains eight puffs and 100 mg of caffeine, roughly the same amount contained in a tall Starbucks mocha. Another perk? These things won’t give you stinky coffee breath. They come in three flavors: lime, raspberry, and green apple. AeroShot also has vitamins like niacin and B12, making each tube at least as healthy as a bowl of Frosted Flakes. The inhalers debuted in early 2012. Cost: $2.50 each (which is less than a tall Starbucks mocha).
R
ecycling really is a wonderful thing. Thanks to constantly evolving technology, we can make a better planet by converting old newspapers into product packaging, aluminum cans into automobile parts, and human feces into steak.
Yes.
It all started because of Japan’s sewage problem. See, 127 million people living in a country roughly the size of Montana makes for a lot of dookie. So, the Tokyo Sewage service approached lab researcher Mitsuyuki Ikeda to devise a solution. And he came up with…poop steak.