Monday, September 29, 2008

The World's Most Useless Invention

It's the season of golden and bloodred leaves. A truly beautiful season, were it not for one thing. The leaf blowers.

I've been wondering how this thing ever made it to mass production. As I was trying in vain to get some sleep this morning with leaf blowers terrorizing the neighbourhood, I amused myself by imagining the inventor selling the idea to some big shots with lots of money.

Inventor: "I've got this great new idea. A leaf blower!"
Big Shots With Lots Of Money: "..."
Inventor: "You can blow leaves into a pile!"
BSWLOM: "And then...?"
Inventor: "Then you can blow them into another pile!"
BSWLOM: "..."
Inventor: "It's... It's a cool machine! And it makes lots of noise!"
BSWLOM: "Oh wow we'll make millions!"

And thus my mornings in autumn-time came to be ruined by air and sound polluting leaf blowers, voted as the most useless invention in the world some years back here in Finland.

Plus to make matters worse, we had run out of coffee this morning. On its own this is enough to start up homicidal tendencies, then double that up with the leaf blowers... Fortunately Mr Morrgan saw the danger and rushed off to buy coffee as soon as he knew the situation. Mr Morrgan saves the day!

(The photo shows the huge maple tree in my parents' back yard. A fantastic-looking tree which unfortunately produces an equally huge amount of fallen leaves every year. But who cares! It's so pretty! And completely unpolluted sound-wise!)

10 comments:

The Great Ethan Allen said...

I have to disagree, Car alarms are the most useless. So useless in fact, that if one goes off, people don't look to see who is stealing a car, instead that look for the idiot that set it off trying to get the groceries into their trunk. If a car thief was stealing a car and the car alarm went off. people might help them, assuming they are the owner, just to get the noise to stop.
Pretty tree btw. If only people would rake their leaves...

Chichiboulie said...

Car alarms are pretty useless. As are leaf blowers.

Both must be invented by men as I'm learning from my son, the more noise it makes, the better.

Arctida said...

Lol Morrgan, and Yay to Mr. Morrgan for saving the day :)

and I agree with previous opponents, the leaf blower (and possible car alarm) suck! :)

genuinelygreen said...

So funny. There are RAGING debates here in Montclair, NJ about leaf blowers. They truly cause a great divide here.

Bruno and Betty said...

Ha! I've always thought the same thing about leaf blowers. I just don't get it. Besides the whole annoying your neighbors factor and all.

Jenn Maruska said...

Why is it that people who don't do anything else in the way of "upkeep" on their homes... are always the ones out using the leaf blowers at 6:00 am on Sunday mornings?? My theory = because it makes alot of noise, but doesn't take any effort.

The photo is wonderful - I love those colors together!

Here's wishing you a colorful (and quiet) season! ; )

Kreativlink said...

Hehee... had a good laugh about that leaf blower :)

April said...

Just yesterday we were ranting about how awful leaf blowers are...as we watched the guy across the street stand outside on a windy day "leaf blowing". I mean really...they were just swirling all around...USELESS!

Anonymous said...

I adore the big maple tree. I wish I could come rake the leaves for you--quietly, with an old-fashioned rake, the way it should be done. I share your hearty disdain for leaf-blowers.

Anonymous said...

Not only are leaf-blowers loud, they also smell terrible and thereby encroach on another of the senses that would otherwise be blessed by crisp autumn air.

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