There comes a time, or an age, when gravity simply put, is not our friend. The fingers, the arms, and legs don’t really work in harmony the way they did a few decades back. I know what the scientists will say – that we need gravity so that things don’t just drift about like they do in a space capsule. Ok, understood. However, if you ladies and gentlemen in research could turn your attention and considerable talents to a couple of my ideas, it would be much appreciated.#1 Anything I’m touching should be momentarily weightless when my fingers suddenly and inexplicably let them go. This would include items in the dishwasher – particularly silverware and utensils. This way, I could re-grasp them, and avoiding that loud clatter as a couple of forks and knives hit the floor. Particularly as we get older, our spouses tend to envision the worst when loud noises happen. A voice from the next room asks “if I’m ok.” Yes, I am. The steak knife didn’t plunge into my left foot. Another victory for skill and agility. This same concept should apply to small pieces of hardware that I’m putting together. Screws, nuts, and bolts should, in a perfect world, just hover in front of me until I can snap them up and put them in the intended places. But no, they disappear into cracks and crevices, they disappear into the carpet, or they scurry with lightning speed under furniture. If they’re round, they will clear a quarter mile before stopping. By rights, anything I drop should just bounce back up to me so I can continue without uttering a profanity or two. At least, the folks that make these ‘assembly required’ bits often include a couple of extra nuts and bolts – they must know me and assume I’ll lose or damage some before everything is together. The act of bending over to pick something up is from time to time more than I can bear. That’s the worst part. And if I have to work “down low”, for example painting trim, it’s always a toss-up as to whether I can get up again. So far so good, but not a given.
#2 Which leads me to my next brilliant idea. In a truly 21stcentury home, we should be able to push a button and everything comes to us. Electrical outlets magically rise about two feet so we can plug things in easily. Shoes in the closet come to us when summoned. Let’s be realistic – most of us don’t have closets like the folks in “Sex In The City”, where everything is right there. We have to bend over to get at lots of things. Pots and pans, for example, should slide out and then gracefully rise to about waist high. The problem with most kitchens is that the perfect height for storage is exactly the same as the heights for preparation surfaces and cooking surfaces. We need kitchens where the lower cabinets and the granite countertops just switch places quickly and efficiently, and then switch back when we’re done. I know, right? Isn’t that truly brilliant?
#3 All of my gardens should be “temporary raised beds”. That means that when I work on them, planting, weeding, clipping, they should rise to a comfortable work level. Some of the more thoughtful plants grow to a workable height, while others force me to bend over or kneel down. (I sometimes envision shrubs and bushes have a conversation. “If I’d known he was going to cut off stuff, I’d have stayed closer to the ground.”) Some will say that the concept of “raised beds” is already here, and that’s true, but some plants need to be seen and appreciated from above. Otherwise we’re just looking at stalks and stems, and the blossoms are merely targets for bird poo.
#4 Car seats should actually come out of the car to receive us. We could seat ourselves comfortably, fasten our seatbelts, and then the seats would go back into the passenger compartment with the push of a button. We never have to scrunch ourselves into the seat, bend down to avoid hitting our heads, or extend a foot and leg in first, tipping ourselves back onto the pavement. The number one fear of seniors is not having an accident, it’s getting in and out of the car safely. The minute we’re off balance, that pesky gravity thing kicks in again. Which leads to . . . .
#5 I know they make chairs and couches, popular in rest homes and assisted living, that lift one up to a standing position – rather like a slow motion James Bond ejector seat. The only problem is that this furniture all looks like recliners. How often do you hear Joanna Gaines say on Fixer Upper, “this space just cries out for a recliner”? Never. Or the Property Brothers inserting a couple of recliners in the “living space”. Won’t happen. Therefore, it would make sense to me that we adapt the technology, expanding the offerings, and there be a wide range of household seating possibilities with the capacity to counteract inertia and help us slightly older folks rise gently and elegantly from a sitting position. Sometimes I use a bit of jet propulsion, the details of which are unnecessary here. For many of us, continued expansion in the mid to upper regions (which I call “upper body drag”) leads inevitably to an increased gravitational pull working against us. So I’m proposing a sweeping new line of “assisted rising” furniture – for home, office, patio and porch. Push-up furniture cleverly disguised as, well, what we use every day. It will be sleek and stylish, like designer stuff only more user-friendly. Furniture makers – are you listening here? The working title for my new line is “Defying Gravity Seating”. Grabs your attention, doesn’t it? “It’ll make you feel like Rocket Man.” OK, maybe that’s a little too Kim Jong Un. A work in progress, but I’m thinking . . . this could catch on.
I'm Thinking...No! 