That Gives Me An Idea!

Hi there. Sorry about no post last week, but I was out of town on business. Then I got stuck another day and, well, there just wasn't time.

This week I thought I'd talk about something that the people around me are sick to death of hearing about. It's pretty controversial, so I hope you're ready for some serious debating material. Bring it up at your next pub/bar night or cocktail party! Watch the fur fly!

At Christmas the cute boyfriend and I went to visit my Mom in Windsor and spent a couple of lazy days lounging around the television, playing Scrabble (my friend Deborah was kind enough to lend me the cool deluxe version), and stuffing our faces with lots of good food.

It was on one of these lazy days that a snippet of information floated into my consciousness from the television in the background. It was one of those "Did you know" segments. Then I heard the contraversial bit: "Leo Gerstenzang invented Q-Tips(tm) in the 1920s. He got the idea from watching his wife clean their baby's ears with a piece of cotton on the end of a toothpick."

I had one of those record-scratching-to-a-halt-in-mid-song moments. "Wait," I said. "Um, doesn't that mean that she invented Q-tips? I mean, that's basically what a Q-Tip is, isn't it?" This explosive assertion caused my Mom to chuckle and say, "yeah, I guess so," and my cute boyfriend to continue watching television in silence.

But really. I'm no rabid feminist or anything, and it doesn't really even need to be about gender, but it seems to me that Mrs. Gerstenzang got the short end of the toothpick in this scenario. I was outraged on her behalf.

Then I promptly forgot about it until last week when I was playing PS2 Jeopardy with the cute boyfriend and it came up as a question with that very same wording again. "He got the idea while watching his wife." No, no, no! HIS WIFE had the idea, he took it and ran with it. I'm not saying he didn't get the patent, improve on it, figure out how to get it to stick on there, and work hard on it. I'm saying it ain't his idea. No how, no way.

It's not like she said, "Say, Honeylips, Junior's ears are a touch waxy. Have any ideas on how to clean them out?" and he said, "Hey, I know, use cotton on the end of a toothpick, that might work." No, what happened was he saw her using cotton on the end of a toothpick to clean his kid's ears and thought, "Hey, I know! Cotton on the end of a toothpick! I'm a genius!"

That's like getting an idea about how to thresh cotton easier by watching one of your slaves using a machine he's invented to do it. Eureka!

Last week I relayed my outrageous story at the pub and one friend said, "yeah, you're right" and the other one said, "yeah, what's the problem?" Everyone else pretty much ignored our conversation.) Well, I don't need to tell you, it got pretty heated after that. I basically outlined my reasoning as per the above and he finally said, "eh, maaaybe". But I'm not totally convinced that he agrees with me.

I told you it was a powderkeg of an argument waiting to happen! Beware!!

Anyway, I'm sure this sort of thing happens all the time in the rough and tumble world of inventions. At least he mentioned his wife, although no one seems to know her first name. And really, the point is rather moot now as what Q-Tips were originally invented for, i.e. cleaning inside the ears, is probably one of the most dangerous things for the ear and has caused many, many ear infections in its day. But still. I think my point stands.

In any event, it got me looking around trying to learn a bit more about it. I was a tiny bit frightened to enter "Q-Tip ideas" in the old search engine, lemme tell ya. But I finally found something not too emotionally scarring. At at least it's pretty original. You gotta give it that.

Okay, I'm off to bed. (I got the idea while watching people sleeping on the television.)