What’s So Funny: Inspect their gadgets

My dad loved a new gadget. If it whirred or beeped or lit up, if you could stick it in your hat or on the dash, he was interested. Of course, it had to work, and it had to be a bargain, but given those two qualifications, he was on board. It was the youngest thing about him.

Were he here today he’d be delighted by this partial list of Hammacher Schlemmer latest holiday suggestions:

 The Swimmer’s Waterproof MP3 Player

 The Stainless Steel Wallet

 The Gyroscopic Dumbbell

 Golf Ball Finding Glasses

 The Fish Finding Watch

 The Speaking Butler Alarm Clock

 The Laser Guided Pool Cue

And this is just one company talking. There are many others bringing us items from out of left field. Dad would be impressed. Hey, I’m impressed. To me, this list is American to the core and offers encouragement in a worrisome time. We have introduced more ingeniously superfluous stuff than any nation in history, and we’re still alive and kicking.

I may be a gyroscopic dumbbell myself, but it seems to me that a country that can come up with these gizmos can’t be so near collapse as some would have us believe.

Collapsing nations don’t introduce laser-guided pool cues; enterprising nations do. They know there are men and women out there who’ve been misreading angles all their lives, and that with a little guidance they could make a living.

Collapsing nations don’t come up with the swimmer’s waterproof MP3 player; innovative nations do. I saw the photo of that thing sitting on a man’s bathing cap and I thought, “Bring on the Underwater Blackberry.”

I haven’t even mentioned the No Blind Spot Rearview Mirror. That actually sounds practical.

To those who look at the golf ball finding glasses and say, “Why?” I say, “To locate the ball you shanked into the rough. Now go and shank no more — but if you do, use your golf ball finding glasses.”

I can’t use a pair myself, but it does my heart good to think somebody will. And the next time a professional hysteric on TV tells me Americans will soon be down to God, guns and gold, I’ll think of those glasses and know better. I just wish Dad could have seen the fish finding watch.

SHERWOOD KIRALY is a Laguna Beach resident. He has written four novels, three of which were critically acclaimed. His novel, “Diminished Capacity,” is now available in bookstores, and the film version is available on DVD.