While the idea I’ve come up with doesn’t rival say, Pythagoras’ Theorem (a2 + b2 = c2), which of course every school kid who got at least a C in geometry knows is that “the sum of the areas of the two squares on the legs (a and b) equals the area of the square on the hypotenuse (c)”, or Einstein’s mass-energy equivalence theory of relativity E= mc2 (which no one but him really knows or understands), I think it ranks right up there with Newton’s Law of Gravitation.
I mean, who else but Newton gets an entire page on Wikipedia just because he observed something as simple an apple falling off of a tree branch (believe me, apples, as well as pears, peaches, oranges, figs and a whole bunch of other stuff falls off of trees all the time when they’re ripe enough, and this is been happening on Earth for some time now) and then proclaiming that he’d “discovered gravity,” which can be described scientifically as “what goes up, must come down.” Man, what a concept. Ol’ Isaac must have had one hell of a good public relations firm to be able to hoodwink the entire world into believing he’d come up with something “new.”
Still, maybe if Eve (you know, that naked lady in the Garden of Eden) hadn’t picked that apple off the forbidden tree, but instead had simply waited for it to fall off all by itself, she and Adam might not have been given the bum’s rush out of their idyllic garden and, who knows, we all could be living a different lifestyle, instead of toiling by the sweat of our collective brow. And all for what — simply to buy clothes to cover our nakedness, food to live on, and to keep a roof over our heads, all the stuff we would have been getting for free if not for one little bite?
Is this the reason then that women are considered second-class citizens, because years ago Eve broke one silly-assed rule. one that she really didn’t need to break if she’d been paying attention in class when Newton’s Law was being taught. Geez.
But I digress.
Now, if you don’t own a pickup truck, you might as well stop reading right now, because my “great idea” will have no meaning for you. Zero. Nada. Zilch. It will be a total waste of your time for you to keep reading.
Me, like a bunch of other guys, I couldn’t imagine life without a pickup truck. I bought my first one over 15 years ago, and here’s why: I’d borrowed one from a dear family friend to move something or another (it was an older Dodge Ram that had belonged to her deceased husband, and while it was in great condition with everything working on it fine, she rarely drove it), but while it was in my possession the windshield wipers quit working, so I had to take it to a mechanic to have them repaired. A few weeks later I borrowed it again, and this time the power windows quit working, so again I’m back at the repair shop.
That’s when I said “To hell with this, I’m buying myself a new pickup, since I seem to be paying for one anyway with all of these repairs.” I’ve never been without one since.
Again, I digress, but I’m about to get to my “eureka moment,” so don’t rush me.
A few months ago, I got a new Toyota Tacoma (I kept my trusty, 13-year-old Ford Ranger, in spite of the fact the transmission is beginning to slip) and, like most dudes when they get a new vehicle, I’ll keep it washed, at least for the first few months until the newness wears off.
But I had to haul some debris to the dumpster the other day, and the bed got a bit muddy. Being too lazy to hook up and pull out the garden hose, it stayed that way for a day or so, that is, until I was sitting in my garage watching the rain fall while enjoying a stogie, and that’s when it hit me like a thunderbolt out of the blue!
Eureka!
Quickly, I opened up the tonneau cover, backed my new baby out into the driveway just to the point where it starts to slope downward, and just sat there for about five minutes listening to A Prairie Home Companion and — presto! The truck bed was cleaned by the rain, provided courtesy of good ol’ Mother Nature. I didn’t have to lift a finger. Wow!
Hey, don’t be mad at me if you feel that you’ve just wasted two minutes (three if you’re a slow reader). I told you seven paragraphs ago that if didn’t own a pickup truck you should stop reading. OK, so now you want to give me the same look my wife did when I rushed into the house and told her about my new “discovery.”
She made some smarmy comment about me missing my meds.
Go ahead, laugh, but just remember, they laughed at the Wright Brothers too at first. Sure, someone else somewhere might have thought of this already, but they didn’t patent it, which I’m going to do right away. When the dough starts rolling in, no one will be laughing at me then, See, only people like my friend Bob Deskins at Lightning Demolition would appreciate my ingenuity, which I submit is as least as original as Newton’s bullshit with that apple.
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.com.