When I was about 8 years old, I had an electronic toy similar to a Casio keyboard that made ‘computer’ noises when you pressed certain buttons. One day, my cousin and I were bored and decided to entertain ourselves by building a machine that would answer any question anyone could ask of it. Never mind that we didn’t have any tools and the only computer we’d ever seen was on TV and always shouting “Danger, Will Robinson!” We figured all we’d need was a few crayons, some paper, my toy and a big cardboard box.
Fortunately, my mother had just gotten a new TV.
We cut a hole in the top of the box just big enough for a piece of paper, put the paper and crayons inside the box and wrote The Answerizer on the outside. I took my computer noise making toy and sat inside the box ready to write the answer to any question on the paper and push it through the slot. We figured that since it would sound like a computer everyone would think it was a computer. Especially since no one would be able to see me inside. Now, all we needed was someone to test our machine on.
My cousin went to the kitchen to get my mother.
When my mother saw this cardboard box in the middle of the living room with the word Answerizer written on it in big, bold, red Crayola letters and computer noises coming out of it, I can’t believe she didn’t fall to the floor and break down with laughter. Instead, she played along and asked a question.
“Are my kids going to drive me crazy?”
A few moments later, her answer came out.
“No, you already are.”
She did not like this answer and to show her displeasure, she kicked the box. To be fair, she didn’t kick hard at all and she couldn’t have known that I was leaning up against the side of the box trying to listen to what was going on. Satisfied that she had exacted her revenge, she turned to go back to the kitchen. However, before she could leave, another piece of paper came out of the Answerizer.
“See? You are crazy.”
We were ordered to dismantle the Answerizer immediately. We never built another one.
I think you should hit up the Silicon Valley moneybags for seed money on this. I’m thinking this is the big toy sensation for Christmas 2002.
Answerizer = Genius.
I always always always wanted to be an answerizer.
Hm, according to some people, I do a pretty good imitation. I *think* that’s a compliment…
It would sure help if I had a cardboard box, though. To insulate from the kicking.