Over the past several years I have been dreaming up inventions, and ways in general, to make my life better. Although there may still be a few small details, such as financing, physical abilities, and the general know-how, I do feel that I am right on the cusp of discovery. The following few paragraphs contain several of those ideas. They are thoughts that I feel are ready to be shared, and so I proudly present them to you.
If at first, you don't succeed.....and if you have Ataxia you probably won't. At least that seems to be the case with me. In fact, I was, and have been thinking, that it would be good if I could simply skip the first, second, third, and most likely the fourth attempt and go straight to the final act of accomplishment. You know, cut out the middle man. This is where I would think a time machine would be the most practical. Not like those time travel movies where someone moves back or forward by a couple hundred years. Those are only fantasy, after all, and in no way even close to reality. No, what I am talking about would be a small device, like a watch, with a dial on the face that could be advanced by five to ten minutes into my future. I think it would be very handy to be able to, say, sit down with my shoes, spin the dial on my device, blink open my eyes eight seconds later, and find that my shoes have been put on and tied. There also wouldn't be any kind of those weird space-time vortexes, or light-streaked wormhole scenes either, like the ones you always seem to see in those same movies. Of course, the only problem that I can foresee with this very plausible scenario is that it would most likely take me five minutes, and numerous attempts, to be able to grip my device and twist it to the desired setting. I'd have to come up with a way to shorten the time needed to set the time-saving appliance. Sound thinking would suggest that I wear a second device that could be used for this purpose. Hmm, I will have to give this circular problem more thought.
Although traveling forward in time a few minutes has been thoroughly established as not only perfectly feasible but also useful to me, jumping back a few moments would also come in handy. I could go back just seconds after falling or some other self-inflicted injury and convince myself to change course or to stop attempting to do whatever it is that I am currently doing. The only problem I see in this is that knowing the kind of guy I am, and based on the fact that I usually don't feel like moving quickly after a bad fall, I could see myself playing with my own head. I'd be laying on the ground and thinking," just let the guy fall, I hurt too much to move right now." The result of this kind of thinking, of course, would be that now I would fall twice, and that seems to be a possible glitch that I would need to work out beforehand. I'm just thinking off the cuff here, but maybe I could use the time travel thing most of the time, and in the instances that I can't make it back in time I could just put out some kind of marker for myself. So, let's say, if I were to approach a stairway and see a flare at the bottom with a large box of band-aids beside it, I could take this as a subtle hint that I should not go this way.
Other very useful items would be the Back-Exploding Parachute, and the Body Airbags. First I will explain the idea behind the Back-Exploding Parachute. This would be designed to help slow and stop forward propulsion by being ejected out behind myself. It would create air drag and work to slow me down, much in the same way a dragster is slowed after achieving top speed. Only, I would want the parachute to deploy long before I have allowed myself to flounder and dance my way to maximum speed. The body airbags would provide a cushion and save me from the brunt of an impact. In this way, it would be similar to the car airbag, but unlike the automobile airbag, it would not require hard contact to deploy. If I have already made hard contact with the floor or ground when the air bags decide to make an appearance, then they would really be nothing more than glorified balloons. I suppose that they could be used to make balloon animals at that point, to help take my mind off the pain, while I lay there for about an hour, trying to recover my senses and shrinking dignity. To be of any use to me, the airbags would have to be sensitive enough to know when I have lost my balance, extract themselves, and be fully engaged before I make a painful connection with some kind of inanimate solid object, (this ain't no love connection, neither!). The airbags would be sown into several pockets and would expand instantly. The problem would be that for every time I have actually fallen, I have stumbled or lost my balance several hundred times without actually falling and it wouldn't do to have the airbags constantly inflating. I would have little children surrounding me all day, thinking that I am a clown and that at any moment I am going to use balloons for something amazing. Maybe the balloons will lift me off the ground, and I will begin to fly away. This would not do at all! The balloons are a serious medical device, not a toy.
In the past, I have mentioned that I have difficulty executing the putting on of my pants from an upright position. I have endeavored to solve that problem by inventing the Standing Pants Put'er'onr. I need to work on the name, I know, but for now that's what I am going with. It would encompass a large pole that I could slide down, comfortably fitting myself into a pair of pants that have been stood up. The only problem I can foresee is how to make the pants stay up while I am zipping down the pole. For obvious reasons I don't want to use a stake of any kind to secure the pants in case, I would miss and turn myself into a human Popsicle,(or other potential injuries that come to mind). And the heavy use of starch to make the pants stand up would only have me lurching around like Frankenstein. However, I do believe that this is an excellent idea and that eventually, I will overcome these potentially painful obstacles.
Another very useful skill would be to have a secondary image of myself that I could send out before me so that it,(which I will refer to as Captain Cool), could point out potential hazards. Whether I decide to use the Doubling Skill, the Time Dial, Back Exploding Parachute, Body Airbags, or the Standing Pants Put'er'onr, I don't believe that I could go wrong. These are all excellent ideas and all seem to have incredible potential and at the same time, be completely within the realm of possibility.
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| Here I'm showing my Doubling Skill. |
The idea behind these imaginations is that I will not let my physical limitations keep me from dreaming, and I would encourage you to do the same!
