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Historical satire by Tom Hoerr. The SWEAT formula and extravagant invention claims are humor, not a scientific index or factual medical history.
Holidays are generally celebrated to make us feel better and that certainly makes sense. I mean, we all cherish the feeling that someone loves us (Valentine’s Day); we enjoy reflecting on our good fortune (Thanksgiving); we like knowing that ghosts and goblins are really neighborhood tykes (Halloween). You don’t often hear of someone celebrating the onset of an illness, an increase in their property tax, or their daughter reaching the age were she can date boys who drive cars.
The Japanese don’t celebrate V-J day, either. This, too, is as it should be.
After all, if we celebrated tragedy and pathos, tombstones would have smile faces and H.R. Block would wear a clown suit and work to calliope music. Given our penchant for celebrating things that make our life better, I’m always surprized that we don’t pay more attention to February 11, National Inventor’s Day. That’s right, National Inventor’s Day. Inventors have clearly made our life easier. Where would we be without inventors? Simple, try the caves; better yet, here in St. Louis, try the mounds (not the candy bar, the hills!). Going way back to Fred Flintstone times, we’ve always been indebted to inventors. Can you imagine the kind of mileage you’d get with square tires? Where would elevators be without cables? Think how few people would watch “Dallas” if television hadn’t been invented. Increased longevity is the direct result of inventors’ ingenuity. Penicillin, interferon, Preparation H and other life-sustaining wonder drugs have increased man’s life expectancy three-fold (not to mention three-mutilate or three-staple).
The increased life expectancy has allowed someone like Ronald Reagan to live long enough to be elected (There’s a message in this somewhere, I’m just not sure what it is!).
The inventions that appeal to me the most, however, aren’t the major life savers or even the significant scientific achievements. My fondness lies with the inventions which improve the quality of life. Thank God for Whitcomb Judson’s invention of the zipper! Electric blankets, FM radio, tab top cans, and football are high on my list of meaningful contributions. I recognize that the computer and silicon chips are important, but seriously now, are they really any more important that the magnetized rubber animals that stick to my refrigerator door and deliver crucial messages? (“Take out the trash,” “Call Ken,” and “I’m showing a house so you’ll have to fix yourself dinner. Take the baloney out of the freezer.”) It would be interesting to have a contest and vote for the #1 invention of all time.
We could simply add a ballot box on our income tax forms (“Vote for one: the wheel, democracy, fingernail polish, Hamburger Helper, no left turn.”) I’m sure the results would vary by region.
No doubt Houston folks might rank air conditioning a bit higher than those in Minneapolis. New Yorkers would probably go for burglar alarms while Californians would probably opt for dope or rock music (that’s assuming that they can still distinguish the difference between the two). St. Louisans? I’m not sure, but I suspect that here in the twenty-eighth ward we’d lean toward politics as being a very important invention.
After all, if it wasn’t for politics, all of our many neighbor-politicians would be out of work and we’d have to help feed them, support their families, and cut their grass. Plus, without politics they’d be in competition with us for honest jobs. Having extolled the virtues of inventions, I think it only fair to discuss some of the more pernicious inventions.
After all, inventors are like any other group of birds, you have a turkey here and there.
The inventor of the pothole should be shocked to death and the inventor of the Susan B. Anthony dollar should be drawn and quartered. . . .
The invention that I hate the most is a relatively recent one: wind chill factor. That’s a perfect example of having too much knowledge.
I know it’s cold when I hear that it is -4 degrees outside; it really doesn’t help me one bit to know that this equates to a -47 degree wind chill factor! I’m cold either way, right?
I wasn’t planning on sunbathing or riding my bike anyway, so why do I need to know that it’s that cold?
The wind chill factor index has only served to make me feel colder, stay inside, and turn up my thermostat. (Is there any truth to the rumor that Laclede Gas developed the wind chill statistic?) Unfortunately, the wind chill factor, like smallpox, is here to stay. I’d like to jump on the misery bandwagon and offer my own invention: the “sweltering weather equals anti-social times” index (acronym: SWEAT).
We could use the SWEAT index during the summer in St. Louis to tell how hot it really is! (This would be much more scientific than seeing how long it takes to fry an egg on the sidewalk or counting the number or cars that overheat at Skinker and Delmar.) My SWEAT formula is simple: take the Farenheit temperature, add the humidity, and multiply the total by .9, then add the number of 905 beers consumed by a reasonable adult within a 24 hour period plus the number of times your neighbor says, “Hot enough for you?” Your final figure is the SWEAT factor.
The SWEAT factor won’t make me feel any cooler or cause me to turn down the setting on my air conditioner, but at least I’ll be more understanding when my Right Guard fails. Now, if I could just develop a factor to determine exactly how much pain I’m feeling in the dentist’s chair. . . .
Originally published in The Paper, March 1981.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1981_03.pdf, printed page(s) 8; PDF page(s) 8.
