Open Writing

Metal detectors beep loudly when you walk through those arch things at airports. Swiss Army knives send them into paroxysms of chirping. For security reasons, you can’t take a Swiss Army knife onto an aeroplane. It’s a weapon. The time has come for something different.

We need something to help us act swiftly when faced with a practical problem. How about a Swift Barmy Knife with a set of really useful thingummies? Let’s ponder a few everyday challenges.

When you buy a CD or some other shrink-wrapped item, you’re driven barmy trying to get the plastic stuff off. Kitchen knives won’t fit. Scissors are too clumsy. Paper-knives, well, not many homes have those. Let’s have a SWAP — Shrink-Wrap Application Probe. A swift twist of the wrist, and the thing’s unwrapped.

One of the daftest things you can do is to lock yourself out of your own house. It’s even worse when you’ve just arrived home, tired out and smelly, after a very long drive. Every door is deadlocked. Every window is barred. You feel a right twit. It’s time for the TREK, Twit Re-Entry Key, which will open any door in your house.

My Swiss Army Knife has a whatsit for removing stones from horses’ hoofs. At least, that’s what I think it is. I’ve never found a horse suffering from stoned feet. But I, and millions of others, face a greater problem.

You know those little twisty opener thingies on cans of corned beef and other types of tinned meat? They usually work very well at one end of the can. But the meat won’t come out. The reason is simple: the other end of the can needs an air-hole. No available kitchen gadget can be attached quickly to that end in order to pierce a hole.

The Swift Barmy Knife will have a TRAP — Tin Reverse Air Piercer. In the USA it will be CRAP, Can Reverse Air Piercer. In certain other countries it could well be known as the CRAPTRAP, of course.

You buy your tinned meat at a supermarket, right? And you’re surrounded by people using their mobile phones. They’re asking someone at home, and at great expense, if there’s already milk in the fridge or something equally trivial. Don’t you feel left out, inferior, if you can’t do that? The solution is at hand.

The SBK will have a KBS, a Knowledge Base Speaker. You simply record some messages on it before you leave home. Better still, you get your partner to record them. In the supermarket, when you want to impress everyone else with your post-21st-century mobile phone, use the KBS. Wave it around ostentatiously. Ask a question, in a loud voice, and switch it to an appropriate answer. Turn the volume up so that everyone can hear it. Like, wow! That’s cool, man!

What else? Ah, yes. It’s difficult to retrieve peanuts from the infinite depths between the seat and arms of your armchair. It’s damned impossible, and very embarrassing, if you’re visiting a friend who has posh new armchairs wherein no peanut has hitherto lurked. Fear not, the SBK will have a telescopic IDROP for Immediate Detection & Removal Of Peanuts.

We live in a world of operating systems, parallel ports, uploads, downloads, networks, drop-outs, blue screens of death, USB’s, 404’s, WWW, and all the clutter of computerism that drives us totally barmy.

Look at it this way. You’ve just been trying to instal a new program on your computer. It won’t work. You try again. The continuing process of instal, delete, remove, re-instal ad infinitum is driving you mad. You want to scream, smash the whole thing into smithereens, and kick next door’s cat.
There’s an instant remedy. Just plug in your SBK and use the UMPY — Unload My Psychotic Yearnings. Ah, sweet relief!

…Pardon? You don’t have a computer? Not to worry. Your UMPY is dual-purpose. It’s also emits a warning signal to nasty people who attempt to kidnap household pets: Unhand My Pet Yak. Unfortunately, that function will work only at high altitudes in Tibet. Such a limitation will severely reduce the market for the SBK, sending the manufacturer out of business.
Oh well. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

© Copyright 2006 Brian Barratt