It seems like forever since we had an early session the way we used to. It’s a good feeling to open a column by saying, once more, that, we were gathered around the old coffee pot the other morning and the conversation drifted to … inventions. Which it did.

It all started out normally enough. Things rapidly went from the sublime to the ridiculous as in most of our get-togethers.

I mean it’s one thing to talk about the wonders of modern science and the incredible things we have now to improve our lives. It’s quite another to get lost on the highway without a map. Some of the tangents we followed were just plain silly which is what makes the whole thing so worthwhile, isn’t it?

How it happened was that a few of us had been playing "Search" on our computers, and we had unearthed a treasure trove of wild and wacky stuff. Of course what one finds, we all receive emails about, and pretty soon this bunch of Elderlies is flying around on the Internet like we knew what we were doing. Crashing into web sites, ricocheting from sensible stuff, to things comparable, to what I’m planning to share with you today!

All of the following are currently registered with the U.S. patent office, and considering how expensive it is to do that it’s amazing someone went to the trouble.

My first find was called an Alarm Fork. Not for the purpose of wakening. It is a diet aid. Going on the premise that most of us eat too fast and therefore don’t get the "I’m full now" signal from our bodies until way past "full" time. This handy gadget is equipped with a red and a green light. When the green light is on you take a mouthful of food. Immediately the red light comes on, and you don’t take more food until the green light comes back on. Sounds good in principle, doesn’t it? At least there’s less indigestion, I’d think.

Then there is a sun visor hat that comes with a built in hairpiece in your choice of color and style. Pretty normal stuff here, but wait.

We’re now looking at a Doggie Umbrella. This contraption straps on your poor dog’s body and covers him with a tent-like apparatus that enables him to frisk around in the wet weather. I’m not even going there because there is worse to come.

Would you believe a Duck Decoy and Blind combination for your hunting trips, made up from a very small boat with a boxed in body. You evidently sit in this thing, draw a duck camouflaged tarpaulin over your self, don a duck head hat, and paddle around the lake. You’d have to be Quackers wouldn’t you?

I found: an airbag for motor cycles that looked like full body armor constructed from a foam rubber mattress; battery powered eyeglasses with a built-in fan; a tricycle lawnmower that could give you all the exercise you’d ever need; and Pantyhose 3x. That’s a pair of pantyhose with an extra leg built in so that when the inevitable happens and you get a runner in one leg you can subtly rotate the offending gam to the side and start afresh.

With this research behind me I started to develop delusions of grandeur, or should we say hallucinations? My idea is for a harness of sorts to fit over a person’s shoulders just like the type they make for kiddy carriers. Only much stronger. These could be carried in the car when you take Granny on an outing. When you get to a place where there’s going to be a lot of walking, you just pop on the harness and lift Grandma into the backpack. Now she can enjoy the family outings without a problem, to her anyway. I would name my invention the Granny Pak.

Of course it leaves a little to be desired in its execution, but I just get these ideas. Someone else can handle the mundane details.

Speaking of which, I guess it’s time to say goodbye ‘til next month.

Take care, be happy.

– Miss Frankie