As I sat in the parking lot at Costco, I pondered upon the imponderables. Like, for instance, the ideal shape for a beverage cup.

There was one in my cup-holder, having just been through the drive-thru at Burger King. I'd been craving Subway for a week, but there is no Subway near Cabbage Hill, and in dropping a package at the Bausman post office, I realized that my blood sugar was low, so I recalled an ad that Burger King is running on television right now.

Their new sandwich, the Steak House XT, appears to be a response to McDonald's Angus Burgers. The Angus Burger is a good sandwich, if properly dressed; the deluxe is nice, some of the others are pretty crappy. I can't remember the exact wording of the TV ad, but the gist is that it's an Angus Burger, only 33% larger, and dressed like a Whopper, for the same $3.99 price.

I would advise against the Steak House XT. It tastes like it was drenched in liquid smoke. If you're a petro-flavor freak, it'd be OK, but there's just not much beef taste to it.

OK, So "Big Gulp" Is A Trademark

But that regrettable sandwich was history, and all that remained was the big gulp of Coke that was in my cup holder. I'm not sure how they do it, but a huge cup that's been throated down to fit in my cup holder handles curves just fine, while a straight-sided smaller cup tends to fall out at the slightest swerve to avoid a pothole.

If you're taking it home, though, those throated-down cups are awfully prone to tipping over. The largest-size cup at Turkey Hill is straight-sided and very stable on a table, but there's no way in the world that you fit it in a cup-holder. It's like me, trying to put my size 13 1/2 EEEEE feet in size 5 toe shoes for ballet.

A few years (decades?) ago, 7-Up was using their "Uncola" advertising theme, and they produced glasses that were similar in shape to an inverted Coke fountain glass. Mammoth at the bottom, they were hard to tip over - except, apparently, for on my nightstand, where nothing every survived long. Em, my late first wife, observed that there was a lot of gravity in the bedroom; it was also difficult to climb out of bed on a cold morning.

It wasn't a cold morning today. It's 57F today, and it felt good to be out and about. No hints of agoraphobia at all. You realize, of course, that I'm rapping on my forehead as I write this; it's important to knock wood, because I have no illusions that my condition has permanently improved. On the other hand, I'll enjoy it while I can.

Designing A Better Gulp

In any case, I was trying to decide if there was any way to design a cup so that it would work well in a cup holder and once you arrived at home as well. It was purely an intellectual exercise, of course. I don't have a very good batting average when it comes to beverage cups.

Back in the 1970s, one of the fast food chains - Sandy's, if I recall correctly - produced a cup that was lined with micro-encapsulated flavoring. They'd sell a beverage, and deliver an empty cup. The kids would race with the empty cup to fill it with unflavored soda water, and stir it to make the beverage of their choice. Magic!

There were several problems with this concept. One was that kids don't have a lot of patience. They'd fill the cup with soda water, plunge a straw in, and take a swig - and it'd taste awful. The flavoring didn't mix immediately; it took, oh, thirty seconds or so for the microcapsules to all release their flavoring.

A second problem was that the drink would continue to get stronger and stronger as you drank, because even after the microcapsule softened, the flavoring wouldn't all release immediately. A third problem was that even if you waited 60 seconds, and then stirred to get all the flavoring out, the flavoring wasn't all that tasty. Still another problem is that flavoring isn't as soluble in iced water - or soda water - as it would have at room temperature. Not is it the world's greatest idea to stir a carbonated beverage a lot, because it makes it go flat. And the ratio of ice to soda water matters, because you want to flavor the soda water, and if there is more ice in the glass, that overflavors the soda water.

In retrospect, it looks like a really dumb idea. You won't find me among those chucking rocks at the folks that wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars on the scheme, because I, too, thought it was clever marketing at the time.

What Goes In, Must Come Out

Packaging fountain Coke isn't the only problem, of course. Eliminating it is also a problem, at least for men, and I'm not referring to those Avodart advertisements.

Speaking of which, if there is a pharmaceutical that women shouldn't come into contact with, especially broken pills, one has to wonder how it is handled before the consumer gets his hands on it. I'm not sure Avodart is the pill that mentions that in their ad, but someone is mentioning it. The last time I was at the pharmacy, there was a sign up announcing that one of my pharmacists had just given birth.

Now, I suppose they could put the pills in one of those plastic-and-foil arrangements, where you punch out the pill as you need it, but don't you suppose some of the dust from the pills would end up on the outside of such a package? Plastic does generate static electricity, which attracts dust. And what about manufacturing the pills? Do they refuse to hire women under 45? The guys that work in the factory are still going to have dust on them. Even if the guy is 55 and his wife is 45, his 17-year-old daughter might be the one who does his laundry. If it causes birth defects, that's a lawsuit waiting to happen.

A Sweaty Problem

One of the episodes of House, M.D. has a single father making his kids sick because he is taking mail-order testosterone purchased online. When he takes his kids' hands, or kisses them, they get a dose of the testosterone from his sweat, and they get sick. What do you suppose happens to the kids of people who work in the factory where they make those pharmaceuticals?

But let's get off the packaging of drugs, and go back to the dispensing of fluids.

There's a story about a woman who's having her home interior painted. It may not be obvious to women, judging from the various comments one hears, but when a man urinates, he typically is standing up, with one hand "directing traffic" while the other hand supports him as he leans forward.

A Problem Of Shrinkage

Why does he lean forward? It's to keep his shoes from getting wet. Now, I realize that there are different lengths of, uh, "dispensers", but if you recall, you know what they say about people with really big feet. They wear really big shoes, and the bigger the shoes, the farther away from the wall one has to stand. You might think it would all even out, but in practice, rest rooms are cold. There's a lot of cold porcelain, and it remains cold because of all the cold water being used to flush the receptacles. In this cold and moist environment, even a guy with size 13 1/2 EEEEE shoes shrinks to two inches or less.

This phenomenon is called the "Costanza effect" from an episode of Seinfeld in which Jerry, Elaine, Kramer and George go the Hamptons with George's girlfriend Jane to see the newborn baby of some old friends. While there, Jerry, Elaine and Kramer see Jane topless while George gets caught with his pants down - and suffering from shrinkage.

Jerry: Do women know about shrinkage?
Elaine: What do you mean, like laundry?
Jerry: No, like when a man goes swimming afterwards.
Elaine: It shrinks?
Jerry: Like a frightened turtle!
Elaine: Why does it shrink?
George Costanza: It just does.
Elaine: I don't know how you guys walk around with those things.

The Painter

As I was saying, this woman had just had her bathroom pained, and without realizing that, her husband leans against the wall above the toilet while the paint is still wet. The next morning, when the painter arrives, the missus breathlessly sblurts out, "Oh, thank God you're here! I just couldn't wait until you got here, because I wanted to show you where my husband put his hand last night!"

The painter, shocked, says, "Mrs. Johnson! I'm a married man!" And then, realizing that this is an important customer, and it being in the middle of the Great Recession, tries to recover. "I suppose I could sit with you and have a cup of coffee, though."

Twenty years ago, when they passed the Americans with Disabilities Act, one of the things activists were especially emphatic about was that restrooms needed to be accessible to the disabled. Unfortunately, when they wrote the law, they considered the needs only of those in wheelchairs. When I had my severe injuries a few years later, I went from being bedridden to wheelchair-bound, to using a pair of crutches, to using a walker to using a quad-cane. Each of these presents a unique set of obstacles to "recycling bodily fluids".

Disabilities Differ

To use a toilet when one is using a wheelchair, it's necessary to put the chair next to the toilet, remove the side of the wheelchair, and swing oneself over onto the throne. That's still not very satisfactory for men, because fluids come out of a flexible hose, and if there's much pressure at all, the hose sticks out straight - sending the urine into the gap between the toilet seat and the toilet, soaking the pants of the person seated on the throne. Potty chairs for little boys have a cup in that strategic position that diverts fluid flow downward. Adult men, trying to balance themselves, have one hand on the grabrail and the other on the wheelchair, with nothing left to direct the flow.

With crutches, it's possible to use a stool by placing both crutches ahead of oneself, so that one leans into the crutches. This isn't the best solution in the world, because crutch-tips tend to slip on the floor if it's the slightest bit wet - as is often the case.

With a walker, one tends to use a urinal. The problem? The walker makes you stand even further away from the urinal than one ordinarily would. It is possible, at least in theory, to reverse the walker so that the crossbar is behind instead of ahead, but in that case, the weight is on the wrong two legs of the walker. Walkers are designed to resist your falling forward, and offer little resistance to your falling backwards, so this doesn't work very well.

With a quad-cane, it's a shortage of hands again. You need one hand to lean against the wall, one hand to support yourself with the quad-cane, and a third hand to direct the flow.

A Semi-Solution

What would work best would be installing a grab-bar above each urinal. This means that one hand could both provide upright support and allow leaning, using the second hand to direct flow. This eliminates, temporarily, the need for the crutches, quad-cane, and the walker. Those same users need a narrow stall for the stool, with grab-rails on both sides of the stall.

That would eliminate the major barriers to access for disabled individuals - only the problem of wheelchair-using men remains. A permanent "diverter" on the front of the toilet bowl is unacceptable; someone with a broken hip has trouble enough sliding onto the seat as is. There needs to be a diverter that men can slip into place to keep urine from soaking their pants.

Your Inventing Powers Needed!

It needs to be disposable, because it'll become too disgusting to touch within five minutes of first use. Anything disposable that's furnished for free by the restroom owner will be vandalized by sniggering 11-year-old boys in no time flat. That means either something disposable that it vended inexpensively in the restroom, or something that disabled men carry with them. Given that men have limited carrying capacity in their pockets for anything that's not flat, and that disabled men already have difficulty carrying everything they require, the vended solution sounds better. If you can figure out how to make the product flushable, so much the better.

Come up with a clever solution to this problem, and you could conceivably make a small fortune.

Other Bloggers On Related Topics:
Americans With Disabilities Act - Angus Burger - Avodart - Big Gulp - Burger King - cup holder - fountain Coke - George Costanza - McDonalds - painter - Sandy's - Steak House XT - Uncola