So, I spent 11 stupifyingly irritating minutes just now looking for the darned tape-measure, and it hit me: the idea for a new household gadget for aging boomers that will generate Spousal Unit (SPU) and me untold TENS of retirement dollars!
Take those infuriating little RF ID tags I keep finding in books I have bought. And BTW, why the hell do they care where I take the book? Surely once it hits a cash register somewhere, their interest in tracking the artifact from production through purchase is DONE! But no! Months later, I'll be sitting in American Airlines SFO-to-JFK, seat 34D, trying to ignore the "sharers of intimate details" that I seem to attract like cat hair to my favorite black dress, and hello!... I turn to page 226 and on to my lap drops a little 1"x1" white bar-coded package that has evidently been emitting tracking bleeps or chirps or whatever it does from every lunch break room/bathroom/night table/travel briefcase it's been in since I bought the book. And who the hell is "they," anyway?!! Nonetheless, it's cool technology that will help me not eat cat food when I'm 80 so I'm moving on....
Anyway, we have RFID tags so let's slap 'em willy-nilly on things like tape measures and keys and the single jug of Windex we seem to be able to afford at one go in this household.
We also have remote control devices. I know this because I fight them on two fronts almost nightly. First, if I am Contender #2 in the media room, I lose. I don't lose graciously about anything, so I remember these incidents with frightening clarity. And secondly, if I'm Contender #1, I lose anyway. I can't figure out how to use the damn thing without it "freezing." (And HELLO! the "Honey, not tonight, I'm too cold" gig died out with the Stepford clan.) Nonetheless, I know remote control devices exist and some people have figured out how to 1) be Commander, and 2) make them submit. And these remote control devices come with scary names like "universal" and seem to be able to control almost anything in Bluetooth range, except of course a) the Remote Commander himself, and b) its own ability to function. Never mind... you take what you can get in these cool gadget fantasies.
Okay, so we have doomahickeys that can track stuff, and Bluetooth devices that can control doomahickeys.
We also have (and here is the BRILLIANT bit) aging folk (me) who cannot, under penalty of death, order poster frames on line because they can't remember what size the poster is AND can't find the tape measure, even though they are SURE they saw it yesterday in their own office. Dear SPU is napping (because he has worked really hard this week) on the couch we meant to throw out but forgot. And now I can't bring myself to wake him up to ask if he knows where the tape measure is. So we have a market need of a doomahickey device that can find stuff.
Here's how it would work.
The remote itself would be a type of clapper device ("Universal Clapper App"?) since, of course, if you couldn't find the friggin' remote, you'd be back just looking for the tape measure. So clap once, and a claxton, the decibels of which would rival the take-off revs of a Boeing 747, begins and you find the black box under couch cushion #4. Once in hand, the remote displays a simple menu of options, based on previously personally assigned and applied RFID tags:
1. Find keys to SPU's car.
2. Find keys to PFIFB's car.
3. Find sunglasses (all)
4. Find marbles
5. Find tape measure
Make your selection, track the beep and voila! Don't you think there is a TON of pennies to be made here?
BTW, SPU woke up, found the tape measure, and brought it to me with great relief and delight, presenting it with a "ta-DA!!" kinda joy.
And then I couldn't remember why I wanted it in the first place. Now THERE is an increasing problem just CRYING for a gadget!
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