(But I’m still waiting on those flying cars.)

~-~-~-~-~-~

Isn’t technology wonderful? Except, you know, when it doesn’t work, or it’s trying to kill you?

It really is amazing to think about all the things you can do, or buy, or see, or fly somewhere to see. And all you need is money, or a political office, which is redundant. From an automatic bread slicer, to a driverless car, to your own personal trainer, to a custom ride into Earth orbit with Richard Branson, a man who has buckets of money, but no lips.

(I’m told an automatic bread slicer is the best thing since sliced bread, and don’t think about that phrase for too long as it could damage your lips.)

And, thanks to TV and the internet, we’re constantly reminded of what we can’t live without. Television marketers in particular seem determined to shout you into shopping submission, because no respectable homeowner would be caught dead without gadget X, or appliance Y, or lips. The yelling, that for some reason is usually yelled by some voice-over actor with an Australian accent, is so mind-drilling that you soon find yourself thinking, “you know, they’re right. I don’t think I have a kitchen knife that could cut my shoes in half, yet still carve Mount Rushmore into the skin of an overripe tomato.”

So let’s rejoice, America, as we think on some of the miracle inventions, gadgets, devices, and overall timesavers available to anybody with a wallet to wave. Here are a few examples:

Finally, I can buy a can opener that we can carry to where the can is, and then attach it to the top and activate a little twirling motor, because I mistakenly married a tactile-challenged idiot who can’t grasp a jar of spaghetti sauce and walk four feet without immediately dropping it on the faux marble floor.

Finally, I can buy a flashlight that will survive getting run over by some ticked-off, tattooed ex-Navy Seal wearing a torso-hugging black tee shirt and driving a truck that’s called both a “Dodge” and a “Ram.”

Finally, I can get an insulated large-cocktail-sized thermos that will keep my iced tea iced even after some unknown guy with welding gloves and a blow-torch attacked the thermos, making it very hot, as demonstrated by some other faceless actor who now has to pick up the thermos with Chernobyl tongs.

Finally, I can afford home delivery of a large quantity of “discreet pocket catheters,” although I’m pretty sure you can’t honestly use the words discreet and catheter in the same sentence. What’s more, these new catheters are now “polished,” which means previous catheter customers clearly have the standing for a class action lawsuit.

Finally, I can get a garden hose that will not only rewind itself, but like my new flashlight, it can also survive being constantly T-boned by a manic ex-Navy Seal, and what the heck is up with all these marauding truck drivers all of a sudden?

Finally, I can buy vast quantities of “Miracle Male Potency Improvement” pills and swallow one every hour for the rest of my adult life, just in case, because obviously, I’m the kind of guy who’s constantly late for work due to having to wade through waves of sex-crazed nymphets who camp out every night in my garage, each eager beauty hoping they’ll be the one I choose to pleasure first. The miracle pills will be delivered directly to my door by an independent parcel delivery company employee who wears brown shorts and grins too much; furthermore, the delivery will arrive in discreet packaging, because discretion is big to guys who insist on believing they’ll soon be having rampant warrior sex with hundreds of women, or one.

Finally, through the miracle known as “financing,” I can get a brand new car that I don’t need, can’t afford, and that has some kind of useless stick on the steering wheel that has something to do with something the manual calls “turn signals.” Financing is a mechanism by which an otherwise fairly intelligent male will agree to pay $85,000 for a $30,000 car that begins to lose resale value ten minutes after the sale. It is a shameless sales tactic targeted directly at hormone-driven males, invented in the 1960s by home stereo salesmen wearing wide ties, short-sleeved shirts, and usually named Todd.

Finally, I can buy a camping lantern that can be seen from the far shorelines along huge lakes, in case someone over there on the other side is hungry to finish that novel they’ve been reading all week and decides to canoe across for a late-night visit; unfortunately, based on the intense novel I’m reading right now, I’ll probably slay them at the dock.

And I’ll start with their lips.