Inventions I'd Like to See

You heard about 'em here first, and since I'm really more of a knowledge worker, you can carry your weight by handling the engineering, patenting, and marketing part. We'll split the profits even Steven!

The Kitchen Scanner. Got a fridge full of ingredients but Frazzled You can't quite come up with a plan for dinner? Or have you found a great recipe but can't recall whether one cup of walnuts and a pinch of fennel seed lurk behind all the bags of chips in the pantry? The Kitchen Scanner (TM) can help!

If you like the self checkout lane at the supermarket, you'll love how this technology has come home. Simply scan your groceries as you bring them home, and again as you consume them. The Kitchen Scanner will maintain an up-to-the-minute inventory of everything in your larder, right down to that jar of endives with the 1988 expiration date. Plus, its Recipe Generator feature will suggest delicious and wholesome meal plans from the stuff you already have.

OK, it needs a better name, but my dearest and I would totally buy one. And one of these, too:

PerfecTemp Shower Saver. Are you like me, torn between ecology and comfort in the shower? You want to save the planet's precious natural resources, but turning the water on and off and trying to get the temperature just right each time is enough to drive you crazy.

You know the drill. Turn on the hot. Now the cold. A little more cold. A little more cold. Whoops, too cold. Turn down the cold. That's per-- whoops, too hot. Ah, there we go. Pull the lever to turn on the shower. Get in.

Get the bod and hair all wet. Push the lever to turn off the shower. Find shampoo. The full bottle, not the empty one we keep in the shower hoping for Elijah to wander into our bathroom and pronounce it everflowing. Squeeze bottle. Not that much! Attempt to suck the excess back into the bottle. Too successful; squirt some more out. Start getting chilly. Lather. Grope for the spigots with soap in your eyes. Turn on the hot. AUGGH! TURN ON THE COLD! OK, not that cold! A little less. A little more. A little less more. A little more less. OK, that'll do. Pull the lever. Rinse. Push the lever. Attempt to turn both spigots off at the same rate so your toes don't get scalded or frostbitten in the process. Sort of succeed. There we go. Off. Ready to commence scrubbing.

Oops, forgot to dampen the facecloth. Start over again from step 1. And so forth from step 36 to the glorious end, except for the part where you think you're all done and are reaching for your towel when you remember you still have conditioner in your hair so you climb back in and start the temperature adjustment process all over again. No matter, though! Think how many gallons of water you've saved! Think how many acres of rain forest have gone unmolested by not heating all those gallons of water you didn't use. Think of your facial tic!

There's a better way. What if you could get the temperature just the way you like it, and coming out of the shower head all marvelously, and THEN you could turn the flow on and off by pushing a button. Why doesn't somebody market a shower fixture that has a valve between the spigots and the shower head? That's all it would take to comfortably save several gallons of heated water every shower.

Now get going and whip these starter ideas into shape. And don't forget about the profit-sharing thing.