Visible Wear

Sorry about the lack of an update folks but check over at Visibly Worn and hopefully you’ll all forgive me

Click on over to Visibly Worn for a sight not seen in nature — a fashionable geek!

“It’s time to revolutionize invention!” Nadia shouted before her audience.

The students in Mrs. Wilder’s fourth-grade class wore startled and bewildered expressions. None of them knew what was going on. Many of them didn’t even know what the word ‘revolutionize’ meant. Still, it was Nadia’s turn at show-and-tell and she had the floor. Besides which, everyone, including Mrs. Wilder herself, was infinitely curious about the covered contents of the cart Nadia had wheeled in at the start of class.

“The grown-ups have always been in charge of coming up with new inventions, but the problem with grown-ups is that they have no imagination. They can invent things that are faster, smaller, and more powerful but they’re still really the same old thing. Also, maybe most importantly, they’re rarely fun to use. There are only a few things out right now that I think really get it right and many of them are considered toys and aren’t even taken seriously.

I think that it’s time that toys stop being the only things that are fun to use, that make you say ‘wow!’ everytime you use it, and I think that it’s up to us kids to invent what the grown-ups can’t. Yes, Jonah?”

“What’s under the blanket, Nadia?” A pudgy youth, slumped deep in his chair with a chubby trembling finger indicating the covered cart, asked.

“Why, I’m glad you asked that, Jonah,” Nadia answered and a much relieved Jonah sat up a little taller in his chair. “This is my show-and-tell as well as my business proposal to all my fellow classmates. Everyone, I introduce to you, Childworks!”

With a flourish Nadia lifted the sheet into the air giving just a hint of the wonders below, and then snapped it with practiced wrist action eliciting just as much excitement over her show as well as the cart’s contents.

On top of this fairly innocuous two foot by four foot metal wheeled cart were the most incredibly inviting devices. Brightly colored objects with buttons to be pushed, sliders to slide, dials to turn, screens to watch, secrets to unlock. Some objects looked familiar, like one that looked much like a flashlight, one that resembled a clock radio, and another that seemed like a toaster of sorts, but then there were those objects that defied imagination and begged exploration.

Nadia smiled broadly as she surveyed the room. All eyes were glimmering with unmistakable captivation, excitement, and imagination. Creating these devices had occupied every spare moment of Nadia’s time since the summer before the second grade and her feverish pace had paid off in spades. Her inventions were bound to be huge successes, but they were only the tip of the iceberg. With a classroom full of vibrant young imaginations the inventions to come would prove the wonders on display today to be mere trinkets.

“Jonah, would you mind coming up here and being my assistant?” Nadia asked, catching her subject by surprise. His frazzled brain attempted to remember how to nod his head but it was no good and so instead he jumped up from his desk, sending his chair crashing to the ground, and marched awkwardly, almost robotically, to the front of the class.

“Okay Jonah, now what do you suppose this is?” Nadia asked, her hand on the toaster-like device.

“A, um, a toaster, Nadia?” Jonah asked back, his right foot grinding nervously on the tiled floor.

“It is a toaster, but so much more too.” Nadia replied. “You see these little displays on the side of the toaster? Well, let’s plug this in and pop in some toast, and I’ll show you just what you can do with *this* toaster.”

Nadia pulled out the retractable cord, plugged it in to the nearby socket, and the displays as well as a couple indicator lights lit up. From the lower shelf of the cart she took a couple slices of white bread and popped it into the toaster and pushed one of the lit buttons which changed from green to red as the bread slid down into the toaster.

“Now Jonah, think about your favorite animal. Got it?” Nadia asked and Jonah nodded. “Great. Now draw it on the first display with your finger.”

A determined look in his eyes, Jonah hunched over and sketched in some rough approximation of something vaguely mammalian before standing back up. Nadia indicated for him to then write his name on the other display and after he had finished she pressed the remaining button which also went from green to red.

The classroom went dead silent as all watched with such intensity they could almost see through the toaster at the bread itself being toasted. A few moments later the toast popped up and Nadia asked Jonah to remove them.

Much to Jonah and everybody else’s amazement, the toast was perfectly toasted golden brown except for the areas which showed the drawing Jonah had made and the blocky lettering of his name.

“Thank you, Jonah,” Nadia said. “You can keep those if you like.”

Jonah nodded and returned to his seat.

“I’ll demonstrate the rest of these devices with more assistants but now I have to ask, who among you would be interested in joining Childworks and helping me invent more things like this?” Nadia asked animatedly.

However, not a single hand was raised.

Then, one went up. And another. And a few more. And soon there wasn’t a single hand that wasn’t up. Even Mrs. Wilder’s hand was enthusiastically waving in the air.

“Thank you, everyone. I promise you you’re all going to be part of something extraordinary,” Nadia said, positively beaming. “Now, let’s check out the rest of these gadgets.”