Useless Inventions There have been many inventions over time which just seemed to be useless to me. Every once in a while, though I have to admit as useless as they were, some created profits for those who invented them. One of these which comes to mind is the infamous pet rock. Why in the world did people spend money on something they could pick up off the ground? It is said Gary Dahl made about 15 million dollars from selling them. This doesn’t say much for the intelligence of the human race. A so-called improvement to the Pet Rock came out years later. The Pet Rock now came with a USB cable you could plug into your computer. Guess what the rock did? It did absolutely nothing, the rock just sat there. Another invention which I can’t see any purpose to is the tEeN TyPEr. It was a device you connected to your computer and put next to your keyboard. The function of the device was to randomly press the cap lock key so when you typed a message it would be full of random upper case and lower-case letters. God forbid you had to text numbers. Talk about a useless device. The Munch Muffler was a square plastic device with holes in the front. The idea was as one was chewing, they would hold this device over their mouth to muffle any sounds. If someone made so much noise eating, they didn’t need the Munch Muffler, they needed to eat at home. Talk about useless, YouTube has a video which includes a toilet, turned into a BBQ pit. I am all in for useful inventions, but the idea of cooking meat in a toilet bowl somehow just doesn’t seem appetizing. Maybe in all fairness, some people wouldn’t mind. Another video shows a man working on a bowling ball and preparing it for use in his car. The next thing it shows was the guy using it as a gear shift knob. Can you imagine shifting gears with a huge bowling ball? Not only is this useless, it takes away shifting functionality. Try and think of one of the most useless things ever invented. How about an ice cream cone holder which turns around so you don’t have to turn the cone manually. Yep, someone invented one. Why not just invent a pair of robotic teeth that pre chew your meals, oh my goodness I could also invent a useless item. This invention is not to be confused with teeth for a robot. I am talking about teeth you place over a large jar or container that pre chews your food. Oh, someone just said that is a food processor. I guess that’s right. One item I saw was a talking garbage can. It never said anything useful and after a while you wanted to get up and smash it to pieces because it never shut up. Of course, the trash can part was useful it was that terrible annoying voice that wasn’t, and on top of that, it was in a cafeteria where people were trying to enjoy their food, which made it even worse. Somebody listed Agent Orange. Agent Orange was a defoliant used during the Vietnam War. Tons of it was dropped all over the place and didn’t seem to help that much and it caused many soldiers permanent injuries and their children birth defects. This is still a very serious topic and many in the military who served in Vietnam are getting compensated for their injuries, but others I know still are not getting anything even though they suffered injuries and children with birth defects. People, especially men are always looking for ways to grow hair and there are many products which claim to do it. But sometimes, some men are looking to cover their bald spots. That is where hair in a can came in. A fine powder was said to be sprayed. Some people said it looked like the person spray painted their head. I personally have never known anyone who used it, but I sure have seen some terrible toupees in my day. One invention which didn’t seem to catch on was the Hawaii Chair. You know how you are always seeing inventions on television being advertised that allow you to exercise while sitting, this is one of those but far more active. It swings you from side to side at 2800 RPM. Some said it felt like being on a ride. The company went out of business in 2010. I felt I had to include this one although it is not useless to the people that do it, only to the ones that receive it. Can you guess what I am talking about? If you guessed spam email you would be correct. Anything with the name spam in front of it that isn’t a meat, is just an annoyance. I’d also like to include spam telephone calls and even spam snail mail. One of my favorite useless inventions was Smell-o-Vision. It sounded like a strange idea at the time, but it did seem to have a chance of success, that is until it was tried. The idea was the film in a movie house would trigger certain smells at appropriate times in the movie. The movie which was trying it out was named, Scent of Mystery. It is said when the smell was released it smelled bad. I always wondered if this smell routine had ever been tried with the movie before it was shown to the public. If any movie needed to be previewed first with the gadgets for the smell, it was this one. Maybe the smells could have been adjusted to be more natural.
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