August 6, 2007

Tater Mitts: Innovation for a Bold New World

Not too long ago I saw a television commercial for what has to be one of the most important industrial breakthroughs in human history. Even though major advances of this sort are not really the focus of my column, this is a development so revolutionary that I felt it was my duty to share it with you here, on the off-chance some of my readers may have missed the press briefing.

I am talking, of course, about Tater Mitts.

Like the Segway scooter and Ron Popeil’s Pocket Fisherman, Tater Mitts just might change forever the way we view the world around us. Tater Mitts employs an ingenious blend of state-of-the-art rubber dishwashing glove technology with some sort of coarse abrasive, to let the average person peel a boiled potato in less than eight seconds.

This stands in stark contrast to the 25 or 30 seconds it takes to peel a potato with archaic “knife” technology. To put this into some perspective, if you peel an average of just six boiled potatoes per day, Tater Mitts could save you nearly fourteen hours every year. That’s enough to watch the entire first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with time left over to change the line on your Pocket Fisherman!

And then there is the safety issue. As the Tater Mitts commercial dramatically points out, peeling potatoes with that old-fashioned “knife” is just plain dangerous. While a Google search failed to turn up any statistics on potato-related injuries for recent years in the United States, I think the Tater Mitts spokesman’s one-word dissertation – “Ouch!” – really says it all.

All this got me thinking about the perceived state of technological innovation in America. For example, some people think that our auto industry is doing poorly because we Americans have lost our innovative edge. To those people, I say, “Pah! Just look at Tater Mitts!”

Of course if you want to talk directly about innovation in the auto industry, just look at the Hummer. OK, I’ll admit that a Hummer is about as well-suited to most civilian uses as a rocket launcher. It burns fuel like an oil-well fire, and looks a little bit like a dumpster with Mag wheels. But a mother of two driving a Hummer can easily transport the kids, plus enough groceries and ammunition for about nine years in the survival shelter. Think of the savings!

And don’t think for one minute that American innovators have been resting on their laurels. Just look at the new, smaller and more efficient Hummer, the H3, which is designed to contribute more than 11.4 tons of greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere every year, bringing us just that much closer to our goal of enjoying our winters sunbathing in a beachside tiki bar at the North Pole.

So, any time that we as Americans are tempted to feel technologically inferior when we see a Hyundai self-destructing on the side of the road or a Japanese dancing robot, we need to stop and remind ourselves that we are the people of the Veg-O-Matic (which both slices and dices!), the Salad Blaster (highly compressed salad dressing at its finest), Ginsu knives that can saw tin cans in half (who could imagine that an Asian-sounding name could apply to something so all-American), Hummers, Tahoes, Expeditions, Durangos, Escalades . . .

…and Tater Mitts.