Bad Inventions

We tend to assume that new things are good things.  There's something magical about the word new. Because we've been bombarded with the combination every time we shop for nearly anything, we associate the word new with the word improved. Well, t'aint necessarily so.

I'm not actually sitting on a flowered sofa with a hand-crocheted Afghan covering my lap telling my grandchildren that I walked five miles through knee-deep snow, up-hill to and from school. I'm not anti-new.  It's just that there are some things that just should never have been invented. 

I've developed a top ten list for your debate.

1. Algebra. I am still waiting to find myself in a situation where I need to figure out what X equals. I'm sorry, Mr. Scheurman, it was painful and I just don't see it.
2. Cigarettes.  I think if someone wants to throw money away to suck poisons into her lungs and poison anyone around her who is trying to breathe,  she should be required to smoke cigars, a pipe or at the very least go to the trouble of rolling her own.  Making smoking more convenient was not a good invention.
3. Thong underwear.  Seriously!  Why even bother?  I have never felt the need to floss my butt and I don't think other people should, either.  Which reminds me of no. 4.
4. Underwire bras.  The inventor of this modern torture device was a sadistic, pure evil, misogynistic, testosterone-laden psychopath.  And I don't like him very much.
5. Gym parking lots.  If people would walk to the gym, they wouldn't have to go in. 
6. Spandex "work out" clothes.  If you've ever partaken of no. 5, you know the kind I'm talking about.  This is just wrong as well as superfluous if one has body paint.
7. Twinkies.  I didn't taste one of these modern marvels until I was a married woman.  I immediately spit it out.  They are poison and don't even taste good. 
8. Light beer.  If you're going to drink beer, drink beer.  Don't pretend that it's diet beer.  It isn't diet and it isn't beer.  I'm from Wisconsin and I know.
9. Chewing gum. Who decided that what we really need is something that makes humans look like cows chewing cud? Why was that ever a good idea? And in what Universe did people decide it was ok to chew gum in a professional setting, at a wedding or funeral, or anywhere I can see them?
10. And the stupidest invention in the history of the Universe is. . . . (drum roll, please) Methamphetamine.   Someone actually went to the trouble to find out what would happen if he mixed some cold medicine with some drain cleaner and some other fancy stuff; cooked the toxic substance down, and then smoked the particulate.  Now who on God's green Earth is actually that stupid?  Here, man, smoke this, you'll be hooked tomorrow, lose everything you have including your family, possessions, freedom and your ability to think.  Yeah, sounds AWESOME, man!  I've seen so many people whose lives and souls have been stolen by this garbage and they aren't pretty let me tell you.  Not only do their brains stop functioning like a human brain, their teeth turn into little pointy black things, their skin turns grey and full of lines and creases and they look as if they've been held captive in the dark, damp basement of an evil witch for the past year or so.  Now most people buy their first meth from someone who is cooking it.  That's just more stupid than can be expressed here in polite company. But if you were going to buy a Ford, you probably wouldn't want to buy one from a person with black teeth that were falling out  during the test drive, who weighed about the same as your house cat and was about four times a jumpy; even if that man drove a ford himself.  So why in the world would anyone buy meth from a meth cooker who looks like that?  Doesn't it ever run through the buyer's mind that just maybe the seller looks and asks like that because of the meth?  I've known a lot about drugs and worked with people who've  been addicted to all sorts of drugs but I have never seen anything that comes close to being as down right STUPID as meth.

Meth Mouth