Gherkin Street

By Red Dinger:

I am often amazed when we look through history to see the wonderful advancements that mankind has made, even beyond nasal delivery technology.

What must it be like to have those great inventors discussing their creations amongst each other?

“I made a device that means mankind will be able to talk to each other at great distances thus improving communication between people all around the world!”

“Well, I made a device that means man will be able to fly thus improving travel and making other locations that more accessible”

“Yeah, well I made a device that will take mankind to the moon thus improving our understanding of the origin of the species”.

“That’s nothing, I made a device that people will be able watch by sitting in front of while eating chips and drinking beer, thus making mankind grow fat and improving their likelihood of catching any number of heart related ailments!”

Fact is, all of the above are wonderful inventions. That said, they each appeal to different groups of people - the telephone to women, the airplane to terrorists, the rocket to science geeks and the TV to men.

Incidentally, only one inventor got rich though - Mr Television. He has retired and now lives on a remote island (pun fully intended).

I suppose God has the edge on great inventions though:

“I made a device that cooks, cleans, does the housework and you can have sex with it.”

It’s a device that appeals to almost all groups of people on the earth, except New Zealanders who place no value on food, cleanliness or housework and have found another device that they can have sex with. They would probably argue that theirs is better as they can also eat their device (with mint sauce).

Still, God’s invention costs half as much as the earlier invention (if it gets paid at all) and yet gets promoted less often! Plus it lives longer and while it gets lost all the time it usually finds its way home by an unusual method known as “asking for directions”. I've heard about it but never tried it myself.

Of course, God’s invention has some drawbacks. It creates rather large phone bills talking to similar devices and the sex part has some serious flaws. Often you are required to place rather a large amount of alcohol into the device before it works.

Also, my particular device is always pointing out my flaws. I wouldn’t mind so much except that said faults are not so much my fault as my inventor’s mistakes. Id much rather she nagged him. After all, she thanks him rather loudly for his invention of the orgasm. Well, she would if she had ever experienced one … but I digress.

But if God made (aka “invented”) the world and everything in it why then didn’t He finish the task and invent all the groovy stuff that mankind has since come up with? The only Acts of God we get these days are earthquakes, tsunamis and Roger Federer … whatever happened to flying cars and a fridge that not only cools the beer but brings it to the couch when you are ready for it (that alone would give my wife a lot more time to do the ironing)?

Leave it to mankind to come up all the improvements. Of course, men tend to invent more things than women, they just seem to be able to find more time in their days to do so.

I wonder why that is?

Oh look, here comes my wife with the rolling pin. Looks like she is going to explain it to me. If only I had her higher tolerance to pain?