The Downside to Ingenuity

If you study the photograph posted at the outset of this blog you will surmise you are looking at a cellphone and a flashlight (torch for those of you from England) duct-taped to broom handle.  But that is only the beginning.

What you are really seeing is pure ingenuity.  And no beer was involved.  Not at this point.

Ingenuity is a difficult and unlikely animal.  On one hand, ingenuity ultimately placed on your lap your laptop computer.  Ingenuity placed a Veg-O-Matic onto your kitchen countertop.

Good stuff, for sure.

On the other hand, ingenuity often turns some hapless (beer-drinking) soul into the next Franz Reichelt.  Franz, for those of you still ruminating about the Veg-O-Matic, was a tailor and early pioneer in the practice of parachuting.  In 1912, Franz climbed up Eiffel Tower, strapped himself inside the world’s first “parachute suit,” and leapt from the tower.

You can find (on YouTube) a surprisingly clear black and white movie of Franz plunging from Eiffel Tower.  If you are the slightest bit squeamish, you might want to find a video of puppies licking kittens instead.            

Getting back to the contraption at the beginning of this blog.  First, I am not going to compare this to the great Veg-O-Matic.  One of the supreme inventions of all history.  When I was seven or eight I gave one to my mother for Christmas.  She was SO impressed.

I can claim that, yesterday, with our duct-taped invention, my young friend Randy and I explored otherworldly places where most men fear to go: the inside of an active septic tank.  If you have ever imagined what the inside of a septic tank looks and smells like, it is much worse than that.

The video we captured begins in the sun and trees and then slowly descends into a hole in the earth.  I will spare you most details.  I can tell you this much.  The inside of a septic tank is an inky and starless universe.  Strange and ugly things suddenly appear before you at each twist of the broom handle.  Frankly, the video we captured is more disgusting than that of Franz Reichelt jumping from Eiffel Tower.

And I can tell you this.  I am looking for drawings of the world’s second parachute suit, because I am going to try that instead of a septic tank should such a proposal arise anytime in the future.

--Mitchell Hegman