|
My weekly column. Just for fun. Also available online at:
www.cumberlink.com/articles/2005/12/01/editorial/rich_lewis/lewis01.txt
Stick it in their ears
By Rich Lewis, Dec 01, 2005
With the turkey devoured and other bizarre treats like squash pie safely behind us for another year, we can now turn our attention to the “joys” of Christmas shopping.
Most of us will spend weeks wracking our brains to come up with the perfect gift for dad, sis, Uncle Henry and countless other relatives and friends. In the end, we’ll mostly burden them with the usual assortment of socks, sweaters and six-in-one screwdrivers.
But I always make one serious stab at finding something truly unique before surrendering to the obvious.
A few years ago, I put together a list of awesome items that had been patented but, regrettably, never actually produced — such as the self-licking “Motorized Ice Cream Cone” and the self-containing “Enclosure for Protection from Killer Bees.”
I keep checking the shelves, but none of them has appeared in the stores yet.
I got really excited earlier this month when the journal Nature reported that Boris Volfson had been granted a patent for an anti-gravity device. What a cool gift idea!
But beyond the little problem of defying the laws of physics, Volfson concedes that actually building the gizmo “would take years and billions of dollars.”
Sigh. Scratch that.
Things were looking pretty gloomy — until yesterday, when Santa Claus — well, actually, the New York Times — came to the rescue.
There was a report from Wales by Sarah Lyall about a stunning new device that would be welcome in almost any American home or business.
It’s called the Mosquito. It has one purpose: to drive away teenagers.
That’s right. This little black box, Lyall writes, “emits a high-frequency pulsing sound that... can be heard by most people younger than 20 and almost no one older than 30.” The sound is designed “to so irritate young people that... they cannot stand it and go away.”
What adults wouldn’t at some time have given their right arm for a way to make teenagers just go away?
Ok, I hear you saying this is just like those sonic devices that claim to repel everything from mice and roaches to birds and alligators.
Admittedly, those things don’t work.
For example, someone posted this comment on the Internet about a sonic mosquito repeller: “Completely useless.... My niece wore two attached to her clothing and clocked 60 bites in one evening camping. My son wouldn’t wear his because of the annoying screaming noise.”
Ahhh — did you catch that?
The mosquitoes were indifferent, but the boy couldn’t stand “the annoying screaming noise.”
That’s exactly what a Welsh security expert named Howard Stapleton realized. Using his own kids as guinea pigs for “a couple hundred hours of research,” he determined that a 16-kilohertz “pulsating chirp” at 75 decibels did to teens what holy water does to vampires.
The Mosquito was unleashed.
The London Times says the first store to try the device was owned by Robert Gough in Barry, Wales. Rowdy kids were swarming around the shop every day, “fighting, stealing and assaulting the staff.”
Whoa. Those Welsh kids sure are tough.
A desperate Gough agreed to try the Mosquito. The results, Lyall writes, “were almost instantaneous. It was as if someone had used anti-teenager spray around the entrance, the way you might spray your sofas to keep pets off.”
Gough was amazed. “Either someone has come along and wiped them off the face of the earth, or it’s working,” he reported. Kids were “literally begging me to turn it off.” He told them it was meant to scare birds to protect them against bird flu. Snicker.
Another convenience store in London was plagued by gangs of misbehaving teens.
A man who lives above the shop told the London paper the teens made lots of trouble, like “throwing vegetables from the shop next door.”
But when the shop installed the Mosquito — the kids all ran away!
“It hurts,” said 17-year-old victim Sunil Pankhania. “It’s hurting my teeth.”
Another victim told the Times the sound was like “a cross between fingernails down a blackboard and a dental laser.” He actually thought he might be experiencing a “brain malfunction” or “heart malfunction.”
But older people either don’t hear it or aren’t bothered by it. And you thought slowly going deaf from age was a curse.
The Mosquito went into production on Nov. 9 and, the London paper says, “Nearly 100 stores and some local councils have placed orders for the device.”
Good heavens, couldn’t half the people on your gift list use one of these things?
Imagine, no more middle-of-the-night thefts from the family refrigerator by ravenous teens determined to eat every last scrap of food. Just flick the switch and sleep in peace knowing tomorrow night’s dinner is safe.
No more swarms of hormone-maddened tenth-graders showing up to “go over my homework” with your suddenly interested daughters. You just can’t enjoy a kiss when you feel like you’re having “a brain malfunction.”
Oh, come back when you feel better, Eddie.
And for those wimpies who think this is a cruel trick to play on kids, just remember one word: payback.
After all, teenagers have been conducting noise warfare against old people for decades.
They call it “rock ’n roll.”
In your ears, kiddos.
Rich Lewis' e-mail address is rlcolumn@comcast.net
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
