Monday, February 14, 2005

Where's My Jet Pack?: A Personal Journey

I can't prove it but growing up in the 1960s we were promised jet packs. It was going to be the transportation revolution of the millennium. Strap it on, squeeze the handle and up you go. We saw examples in our Weekly Readers and on an episode of Gilligan's Island. It was only a matter of time, a short time.

But days and weeks became months and years. Finally, after no one had said a word about jet packs in a decade, ETK and I, decided to take action in 1981.

Recovering from the grueling lifestyle of college-students-currently-taking-classes, we were in college-students-on-break mode, meaning we had too much time and beer on (and in) or hands. What better time to resolve the seemingly unresolvable! Jet packs it was.

We quickly came to the conclusion that we had been ripped off. Most of our youth had passed us by without a single jet pack between us. In fact, we knew of no jet packs being used anywhere. After even more beer, the answer was clear: we needed someone "on the inside" to provide us with a suitable answer as to why we had no jet packs and, better yet, lobby FOR them.

ETK, much more in touch with the confluents of celebrity and technology than I, came up with our go-to: Brooke Shields. It was so brilliant, I didn't even ask why.

All we needed to do was send her a letter detailing our concern and she could get to the bottom of this. After discussing the letters contents, I tasked ETK with the actual writing and mailing of the letter. This got me out of both the work and expense. Brilliant.

Whether the letter was actually sent or not is irrelevant all these years and beers later. The point is, THERE ARE STILL NO JET PACKS.

What's worse, as an adult, I see all kinds of problems with the whole concept. Thoughts of failure never occurred to me in my younger days. This was definitely an opportunity lost and even Brooke Shields was powerless (apparently) to help.

However, I have a plan. ETK, get a letter out to James Spader.

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