First world problems

I have been on a bunch of conference calls and video conferences since this whole COVID-19 thing started. If we have the ability to send people to the moon and have our cars talk to us, why do some of the folks on these calls sound like they are in a well?

Usually, it is the person who is doing most of the talking and I find myself straining to decipher what they are saying. For example, I heard the leader of the call say,

“We make the best stew in town.” I mean

I guess that should have made me proud but it just confused me because we are in the newspaper business, not the restaurant business.

I found out later the gentleman really said, “We take the rest in the queue and move down.”

Our phones can do everything from tell us the weather to track our steps. However, when it comes to actually doing what a telephone was designed to do, it struggles sometimes. Would Alexander Graham Bell be as proud of his invention today? If Watson heard, “Come here I have cheese for you” would Mr. Bell be as delighted with his creation?

This got me thinking about other things that we should not be struggling with in 2020. For instance, toilet paper should be able to reload itself by now. Someone should have invented a self-replacing toilet paper roll dispenser. As the roll is used up, it is disposed of and the new roll is popped into place. Sure, maybe we have to reload the mechanism once a month or so but we should not have to replace every roll every time.

Also by now, we should have smart cereal boxes that tell you when you are out of milk. I hate pouring myself a bowl of cereal only to go to the refrigerator to discover there is no milk. Nothing starts a morning worse than no milk. The cereal box should have a gauge on it that tells me exactly how much milk remains. This would prevent me from having to pour the cereal back into the box when I do not have any milk.

When I was a kid and this happened, many times I would just pour water from the sink onto the cereal and eat it. Let me warn you that the experience is not as enjoyable with water and cereal. Therefore, I would happily pay more for Corn Flakes with a milk index included.

We should have eating utensils that beep if the food is too hot to go into our mouths. I hate burning the roof of my mouth when the food is too hot. Once I get the food on the fork, it should take the temperature of the food and beep at me if it is scorching. To prevent me from ignoring it the beeping should get louder and faster the closer the bite gets to my mouth. A final safety feature should vibrate the fork out of my hand if I bring it within a half an inch of my lips.

This would prevent me from incinerating my mouth and causing a blister or other discomfort. Think of the amount of taste buds this device could save. The slogan could be Don’t Eat the Heat. The buds you save may be your own.

Come on scientists and inventors. We need innovations now. We should not have to butter our own bread. Bananas should not go bad before we have a chance to eat them. Certainly, we should be able to summon the remote control to fly to our chair by simply saying come here remote.

Science has become a bunch of slackers. What is the world coming to?