Last Sunday we took down our Christmas decorations. We’d just dragged the reluctant Christmas tree out into the garden, which clung to every door frame, shedding its needles in protest, when the hoover decided to give up the ghost. It brought to mind my first Physics class.

I must have been about 14 at the time and sat earnestly with brand new pens, carefully copying down the homework. In brief, we had to ‘invent something’. In hindsight I totally misunderstood the task and overcomplicated it. As it was Physics (something that still eludes me) I assumed that in order to invent something you had to demonstrate how it works. It caused much anxiety, I can tell you. We didn’t have a copy of the Reader’s Digest’s ‘How to do Just About Anything’ at the time and not being a very practical person I had to keep it simple.

During the next class the teacher went round the room asking everyone to stand up and explain their invention. There were automatic fans and lawn mowers that mowed the grass by themselves and the girl sitting next to me had come up with a computerised hoover. I sat there getting hotter and more flustered until finally it was my turn and I had to explain my invention – a large Christmas tree holder with a ‘lip’ to catch falling needles.

The teacher was very kind of course and mentioned something about it stopping her kittens from getting needles stuck in their paws but I felt more than a little stupid and also totally cheated. I mean this was meant to be Physics. Creating things from the imagination was English, much more my territory. And had I known that you didn’t have to have the slightest clue as to how the invention worked I would’ve come up with something much better than a computerised hoover. Say for example a robotic man-servant who could hoover the floor, mop the kitchen and re-grout the bathroom tiles. Or an automatic ironing machine with optional plug-in to wash the pan that doesn’t fit into the dishwasher.

The super duper Christmas tree holder would’ve come in handy last Sunday though. We’ll still be picking needles out of our socks in August.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 12th, 2008 at 8:12 pm and is filed under Me. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.