Sexy flannelette lingerie

I recently discovered Dragon’s Den. It’s a Canadian show where people pitch their business ideas to a panel of five aptly-named “dragons”, all of whom are sitting on gargantuan nest eggs. I want to apologize here for stereotyping dragons; they’re not all irascible creatures. Take Puff for example. An endearing and gentle soul, although I know some cynics claim it’s because he indulges in mood-altering substances. Unlike Bill Clinton, who if we are to believe his assertions (does anyone?), doesn’t go all the way when courting White House interns, or smoking pot. Unlike Barack Obama, who, when asked if he inhaled replied: “I thought that was the point.”

But back to the dragons. If one, some or all of them like what they hear, they invest part of their gargantuan nest eggs in the venture. This happens infrequently. More often they savage the idea until there is nothing left to salvage, including the person’s dignity. I like to think it’s not because Kingston lacks a Colosseum that I watch Dragon’s Den. I like watching it for the ideas that spring up, like exuberant jack-in-the-boxes that have been compressed for too long. Take the menolith, a polished granite slab that you hold against your body if you’re having a hot flash. Once you’re post-menopausal, you can use it in your next kitchen renovation. Or as a headstone.

I’m not sure we should be trying to eliminate hot flashes though; perhaps they are the answer to reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. Maybe we should be inducing menopause in the entire population. Yes, even you males. If one is going to propose a radical idea it should be uber-radical, like the suggestion about putting Prozac in the water supply so that every town becomes Pleasantville. Maybe I should go on Dragon’s Den and pitch my universal menopause idea, since a certain dragonish* co-worker of mine thinks my sexy flannelette lingerie idea is ridiculous. But it’s no more ridiculous than some other things that have been marketed. Take the pants I ordered from the back of a magazine when I was going through my adolescent fat phase. They were plastic with a tube on the side where you connected a vacuum cleaner, which would suck all the air out of the pants. I’m not sure how this classified as a weight loss device; perhaps the people testing it laughed so hard that they burned scads of calories. And what about the Mark Eden bust developer? When my two best friends and I were twelve years old, we decided that we needed to do something about the sorry state of our breasts. We weren’t to be satisfied with an elegantly appointed cleavage; we were after big, raunchy tits. We found an ad for the Mark Eden Bust Developer in the back of a magazine (where I spent much of my adolescence), and ordered one. Six weeks later a notice came in the mail advising there was a package for me at the post office. My father brought home a box wrapped in a plain brown paper. I don’t remember what was listed under “Contents” on the customs form, but fortunately my father was a shy man and didn’t ask what was inside. (I had planned, if he did, to say it was a present for my mother.) That night, my friends came over and we passed the bust developer around. It was a simple device that consisted of two panels joined by a spring. You squeezed the panels together to exercise your pectorals. Either we were overzealous or the Mark Eden bust developer was shoddily manufactured, for we broke it that first night. Gone were our dreams of lavish bosoms.

If these two items made it to market, why shouldn’t my friend Dave’s idea for a new type of toilet that incorporates an art component? When you flush, the water cascades from the tank above through some sort of glassed-in thingy (he hasn’t worked out all the details yet), creating a visual effect akin to viewing Niagara Falls, or if you have a low-flow toilet, a futuristic vision of Niagara Falls when the US has commandeered all the water from the Great Lakes. Maybe he can even put little pinholes in the glassed-in thingy to simulate the effect of being sprayed by the falls. While I’m enthusiastic, no doubt the dragons would let loose a collective fire-breath that would incinerate Dave before his knees had to chance to start quavering.

If, as Edison said, genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration, I think a less-than-brilliant idea can generate lots of money, if great effort is put into marketing it. But that conflicts with my love of procrastination, so likely will never happen. Just stare at the pendulum going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. When I snap my fingers you will wake up and won’t remember that sexy flannelette lingerie is an absurd idea, particularly if you live in the South Pacific. You will only know that you feel compelled to go out and buy some…

*in the endearing and gentle sense