It has long been acknowledged that a lot of inventions were first inspired by fiction. Futuristic television shows — most notably Star Trek — have inspired scientists to emulate the fantasy prototypes they saw on the screen.
When Spock talked to Captain Kirk on a video screen we were amazed. Today telepresence is commonplace.
When Dr. Bones painlessly injected medication into crew members of the Star Fleet Enterprise, children everywhere could only weep with envy.
Well dry your tears kids! While not yet commonplace, SonoPrep has launched a device that perforates only the thin outer layer of the skin allowing the patient to draw in medications painlessly. Phaser guns, cloaking devices and even a hyper drive that can propel us to Mars in only three hours are either realities or in the works.
All of this proves if you can think it, someone can make it.
A logic that was put to the test when Darcy came home after a long day at work with an idea that would solve our global energy problems, save the environment and help us lose weight.
“Shoes,” he said, setting his lunch bag on the counter and shrugging off his coat.
“Shoes?” I asked.
“Yes, shoes with batteries in them that are charged up when you walk,” he replied.
“You walk around at work all day long charging up your shoes, then at quitting time you get into your vehicle, plug your feet into special pedals that charge up your vehicle and drive home on pure shoe power.”
It doesn’t happen very often, but I found myself speechless.
“I came up with it at work,” he said, trying to look modest but failing miserably.
“I do a lot of walking. There might be a few bugs to work out. I was talking to someone about it and they had concerns about running out of shoe power before they got their vehicle to where they were going. But that shouldn’t be too hard to figure out. If nothing else you could have a panel under your feet that opened up and then you could just drop your shoes through it and run for awhile until your shoes were recharged. Sort of like Fred Flintstone.”
Ah, the Flintstones. You couldn’t get any further from the future. I bet no one ever invented anything from watching a show about cave families. Until now.
As much fun as it was to ridicule the whole idea — and I did — I had to admit it was intriguing. I wasn’t so sure about the whole plugging your shoes into a vehicle thing.
How would you move your foot from the brake to the accelerator if they were locked in? What if you had to get out of the vehicle in a hurry?
Maybe you could just slip the batteries out of your shoes and insert them into the car like a debit card or something.
It could even let you know how many credits you had so you knew if you had enough to get to where you were going. If it came up short, then you’d just have to jog around the block a couple times before you left.
And think of the smaller applications! Not only could shoe batteries run television sets and video games, they’d be an incentive to exercise before plopping yourself down on the couch.
Save the environment, feel great, lose weight and live longer, healthier lives. Hey, it doesn’t get any better than that!
You never know, some brainy type might read this, get inspired and bring shoe power to the world! As the saying goes, never underestimate the power of one person to change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.
One Christmas in the near future Shoe Power could very well turn out to be the hottest selling item to hit the shelves since Tickle Me Elmo. Humanity will never be the same.
I’m getting kind of choked up here. And to think I started the whole thing. Me! Ahem. And by me, I mean Darcy. Yes, of course I do.
Shannon McKinnon is a humour columnist from the Peace River country. You can check out past columns at www.shannonmckinnon.com