Anbody Think Of...

I went out to get my truck inspected today - because they have safety inspections for vehicles in Texas, unlike in California - and while I was waiting I had one of those moments. The one where about five different thoughts converge on you all at the same time, flying so fast and furious that you can't hold onto any single one of them. Usually you remember the least worthy of them, while the best one, the million-dollar idea, scatters off into the aether, where Coleridge's 'Kubla Khan' is.
   Ah, but not this time.
   I have a digital voice recorder now, and I take it with me everywhere. So when I have a thought or a notion or when I see something memorable, I can click the recorder and - presto! - instant note. And don't even have to decipher my increasingly-bad handwriting.*
   The one idea I remembered of four or five rolling through my brain was 'call the dude to fix the lights.' The dude in this case is Jack, the infamous missing-digit handyman.
   Normally that would be the one thing I remembered. But... I had my recorder. So I grabbed it and babbled my other ideas. Pure gold. Something pithy enough to be chiseled into stone, no doubt.
   Not quite.
   Here's the text of the last of my notes, which, I believe, I recorded while watching someone try to cross the very busy street by the inspection station, almost getting creamed in the attempt.
   'You should... uh... check to see if... what the hell?... Jesus, what a moron... uh... raffle...'
   I was wrong before. This isn't pure gold. It's platinum. Want another?
   'Couldn't you put cellophane on regular cars like they do on NASCAR racers? Or would that just make more litter on the highway?'
   Wow. Genius. Here's the best:
   'Could you use the steam from a fryer to spin a little turbine? Just enough to power a restaurant?'
   The inspection station is next to a Jack-in-the-Box.

I think the lesson here is not to voice record while you're distracted. I guess you gotta sift through a little manure to find the diamonds.


* which, distressingly, looks more and more like my father's handwriting as time goes on