If I could invent any thing I wanted, anything at all, these would be top of my list of inventions:

1. The Failsafe Car Meltdown Alert: The very second your automobile feels an old-fashioned virus coming on, a special disco ball drops from your interior light compartment and begins to spin in appropriate color scale.  If something serious is brewing, say red for (of course) your budget status in the near future. Orange, for something pricey that’s pending, like a squeaky hag of a fan belt; this would appropriately come with a two week warning flasher. Finally, green, for those special items that the service center insists must be repaired immediately, lest your family suffer permanent impairment from your scrooge-factor (you know, the horrific wiper blades that are leaving a .00001 inch of a streak on your windshield). Blimey.  Can you tell that the minivan’s in the shop, and they’ve called twice to “suggest add-ons” for the service – Over $ 600.00 and it’s only early afternoon…. UGH!

2. A Pain-o-Meter: (can also be used to measure how ill someone actually is i.e. a cold vs. pneumonia) This little device would be strapped to your wrist, like those heart rate / distance monitor things that the exercise nuts use to measure how hard they are working out. The Pain-o-Meter would give an exact, quantifiable, and measurable, objective reading of exactly how sick you are / how much pain you are in compared to your husband. He, of course, swears his illness is worse than yours. This device will give you a reading of your illness / pain, and your husbands, which would once and for all prove that men are bigger ninnies when it comes to pain / illness.  We could even activate it for mommies of munchkins that aren’t quite old enough to express with words why they’re howling. This nifty sucker could double as a decoder!

3. A time freeze dental cap. A device that slips over your back molar (with the aid of your dentist), and can be activated by clicking one side of your mouth in a quick fashion.  Imagine! Your son comes to you at 11:30 pm with a disturbingly (for that hour of the evening) philosophical question, completely out of the blue, such as “wait a minute… what’s going on before the moment of conception for the future embryo? Does God have a reserve for souls someplace that we don’t know about?”  Click! Flash! A few precious moments to think up a really fascinating and thought provoking answer! Better yet… your husband questioning “Honey? What happened to the last three potato chips I was saving for tonight’s snack?”  Click! Flash! Down to the grocery store for a quick purchase and he’s none the wiser by the time I re-activate the clock and answer his query.

4. Instant boot ups / start ups / whatever you call it: I want to invent a computer that is ready for use the second I push the ‘on’ button. I don’t want to wait for what feels like hours for the thing to start up and get ready. It’s annoying and seems very old fashioned.

5. A weight loss pill that really works: A pill that you take at night and you wake up in the morning 5 pounds lighter. If you take two pills, you wake up 10 pounds lighter etc. In the right places. And it firms as well, of course. You could take a lose-five-pounds-around-my-belly-but-not-my-arse flavour, or a ten-pounds-off-the-arse-and-5-pounds-off-the-hips flavour.

In fact, it would be good if we could add a nail-growing, hair-conditioning, leg-waxing, wrinkle-reducing pill as well. Imagine: go to sleep at night and wake up refreshed, thin and hot.

6.  Lego specialty sorter:  It seems like every toy my son owns now causes some Danish executive at Lego to purchase a roomier wallet each fiscal quarter. If it’s not on his wish list for Christmas or his birthday, he’s cutting another lawn in the summer to purchase it himself.  Just how many of those specialty Star Wars kits do they make, anyway? After 6 hours of assembly, he poses them on the end table with pride. One of the furry babies suddenly suffers from an itchy chin, rubs against it, and dislodges a piece. We are constantly collecting stray pieces that never get matched up with an appropriate set. We have millions of Lego’s in drawers that don’t make sense.  If you think building a complicated design is tricky and time-consuming, try completing it when the pieces aren’t set aside for the task. This little gadget would find all these of little parts and put them back with the original kit each night.

Ok, so the last few are silly. Oh, but a girl can dream, can’t she?

What would you invent if you could any invent any thing at all?