Curiosity Killed the Clams

I love those TV shows like “How It’s Made” that show you . . .  well, how things are made. It’s seriously fascinating to me to watch the big machines make things like DVD players or tea bags or barbed wire. I can even remember being a kid and being obsessed with the episode of “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” where they go to the crayon factory. My mind can’t even begin to work with the type of efficiency necessary to put a process like that together. I can only imagine the utter clusterfuck I would create if left with the job of creating an assembly line for a product. It would’ve taken 64 years to make one box of those 64 Crayola colors.

Something I have noticed is that there is one thing we never see how to make – machines that make other things. What type of machine makes the machines that make plungers and votive candles? How do you put together a machine that will in turn put the plastic on the end of shoelaces?

Knowing how things are made just makes me more curious as to how things were invented. That’s a show that should air with “How It’s Made” – first we learn why it’s made, then we learn how. There are so many products on the market for which I would love to track down the inventor and ask, simply, what the hell they were thinking. It’s one thing to invent something that society genuinely has a need for, like a crowbar or peanut butter.  But what I’m really, curious about are the random, seemingly useless things that came out of nowhere.

Take, for example, clamato juice. Who in Christ’s name took a sip of tomato juice, and thought “Hmmm . . . you know what this needs? Clams.” Or, on the other side, who partook in a lovely evening at a clam bake, and turned to his friend and said “You know what . . . we could totally juice these.” It doesn’t even begin to make sense to me, and I’d love to know just what the hell somebody was thinking when they put clams and tomatoes together into a juice.

Another things that incites mad curiosity is thong underwear. Yeah, I know, we’ve heard countless standup comedians talk about how it’s a torture device created by man for women in the same vein as high heeled shoes and tweezers. But really though, think about it. Who decided panty lines were unseemly? We all know that everybody else is wearing underwear. At least, we hope so. So catching a glimpse of a slight bump on your skirt shouldn’t come as a shock. I should think it would be the other way around – a smooth skirt with no lines would actually lead you to believe somebody is not wearing underwear, and that’s the shameful surprise. How is that classy? Breezy, maybe, but classy, not so much.

Sarcasmo

Currently Excited About: the SAG awards. Don’t judge, and I won’t put you through another 38 page review of an awards show. Deal? Deal.