DIFM (Do It For Me)

The list of items that “do for themselves” continues to grow, and I fully support this movement. I was reading that one horse running in this year’s Kentucky Derby threw its rider just out of the gate, but that plucky steed kept right on running the course.  Sadly, it was disqualified because it seems that not having a human aboard is against the rules.  Surely that horse should get credit for initiative.  If we can have driverless cars and trucks, why not jockey-less horse racing?  Dogs did it for years.  In recent years, all manner of unpleasant chores have been reduced or removed by technology, and that has made life easier through the generations.  I know I enjoy the benefits.

I often think of my late father-in-law talking about his early years back on the farm a hundred years ago, and all the things his mother had to do.  She’d make a big breakfast for the ten children.  They weren’t all home at the same time, but there was always a crowd. Her day would start with breakfast at some ungodly hour like 5 AM.  That would no sooner be finished and cleaned up than she’d start on lunch, or dinner as it was called then.  No frozen dinners, Peapod truck stopping by or runs to the supermarket. Apparently, store-bought bread was an event because most all of their bread was baked at home.  The oven / stove combo didn’t heat up unless you threw wood into it, and we all know the trees didn’t cut themselves up.  The most they could do was fall over.  The ice box similarly couldn’t do its job unless chunks of ice were put in.  The television didn’t change channels unless you got up, walked across the room and turned the knob. Remember when we had to adjust the brightness and the color?  How physically demanding was that?  Or in the age when you had to put your finger into the number hole on a rotary phone and then move it around?  Thank goodness we had finger muscle tone in those days. Now, of course, my thumbs are totally unprepared for rapid-fire texting, so I still use Mr. Pointer.

How things have changed, and I’d argue for the better.  Stoves and ovens come on with the touch of a button or the turn of a knob.  Ovens clean themselves when we ask them nicely. Freezers defrost themselves.  Actually, there’s no need to defrost because they haven’t “frosted” in years.    We put our dishes into a dishwasher and they essentially clean up after themselves.  How brilliant is that?  There’s even a separate cycle for pots and pans, if you’re really lazy.   No more putting wood or coal into a furnace – just press a button and the heat comes on. If it’s too hot, press another button and cool air comes out.  Or, we can just set a temperature and it stays nice and even.  That eliminates the bother of pushing buttons.

I’m not sure where the “do it for me” really started.  I know that during the late 1800’s, most everyone had learned to play the piano until someone came up with idea that the piano would play itself, and voila, the player piano.  You put in a roll of paper and it off it went by itself.  Of course, old Tom Edison went a few steps farther when he invented the phonograph, and now we could play anything, not just piano music. Overnight, we went from making our own music to letting others do it for us.  We even invented a term for it:  consumption. That makes ”doing it for me”  it so much more acceptable and dignified.  Someone else invented the dumbwaiter, so that servants wouldn’t have to run upstairs with trays of food.  Eventually, we figured out that if we could do that for breakfast, we could also do it for people and the elevator was born.  All those pesky stairs became obsolete. We’ll leave them there for appearance. The grand staircase has always been impressive.

Just so you’ll know that I haven’t been totally idle, I have a new series of proposals that I think could really catch on.  It’s that kind of bold innovation that my readers have come to expect from me, and I dare say, I don’t disappoint.  Here are but a few:

The Self-Rocking Porch Rocker.  I know, I know.  Long overdue. All this business of putting your feet on the floor and pushing takes way too much effort.  I even have a design for this.  If we were to put springs on either end of the rockers, they’d propel the chair back and forth.  I know, absolutely ingenious.  There is also a subset of this yard accessory – the self-swinging hammock.  All you do is get in, press a remote and it sways gently back and forth.  More genius at work.  I’d add a speed setting, but some hapless hammock-rider might get too excited and fling themselves across the yard.

The Self-locking Seatbelt.  Haven’t we had to reach over and pull out the seatbelt, then clip it into place far too long?   In this new design, the seatbelt comes out of its resting place, drapes itself over us and clips itself neatly into place.  No need to pull and tug when it gets caught, or searching for the insert because it’s slid back or slipped down under the seat.  Oh, the manufacturers think they’re making it easier for us by making the release button bright red so we can find it, but that’s not nearly enough.

The Sailor-less Sail Boat.  For those that enjoy the look of a sailboat but don’t really like the rolling of the sea or getting whacked in the head and knocked overboard by the boom, this is ideal for you.  You just sit in your deck chair and watch your sailboat go back and forth across the bay, its bow cutting crisply through the waves.  You don’t have to worry about putting the sails up and down or the wind rushing through your hair and mussing it up.  A subset, for lake, pond, or river people would be the self-rowing rowboat.  You sit in the back, basking in the sunlight while the boat rows itself up and down the stream.  In the event of approaching rapids, it raises itself up on sturdy stilts and carries you safely through the rough patch.

The Self-Selecting Car Alarm.  How many times have we been disturbed by false alarms?  I know I have, because the panic button is strategically located on the remote so that any time I pick up my keys, something hits that button and I hear the car outside honking its heart out.  In this day and age, when cars can tell you if you’re driving off the road or you’re backing into a swamp, cars should be able to recognize a true break-in and react accordingly.  Perhaps, rather than just intermittent honking, a car could actually call out, “Help, someone has broken my windows and is climbing in.” If there’s no danger, it will remain quiet.

The Self-Weeding Garden.   OK, admittedly a niche market, but definitely a great benefit to all gardeners.  We enjoy planting, we gently rake over the mulch so it looks nice, we even take off the dead blooms.  That makes us feel useful and productive.  However, weeding is a pain.  It has to be done at dirt-level, and some of those weeds hang on for dear life. A remote that you press every few days or weeks so the weeds just disappear below the surface would be of tremendous benefit. I’m just saying . . . . . .

Self-Decanting Wine.   This is perhaps my masterpiece.  The wine bottle decants itself at the press of a button.  No more corkscrews, unwrapping the foil, champagne corks flying off and poking holes in the ceiling.  We, the wine drinkers would of course need to set out the glasses, and actually pour, but the process of opening the wine bottle can be greatly enhanced.  It goes without saying that anyone who would buy wine by the box is completely disqualified, and will never partake in my inventive genius.

I would think that, in this age when we can change television channels, the height of our beds, start our cars, or pay for our coffee with the simple press of a button, it’s time we fully addressed the next generation of technology.  In the event that you are or know an inventor or have access to a brain trust, I hope you’ll take the opportunity to rush any or all of the above ideas to them.  In the meantime, I’ll be on the porch in my non-self-rocker, dozing and yet still working on new DIFM  (Do It For Me) ideas.  Will keep you posted.