stop stealing my ideas, moen Every once in a while, I have a vision of sorts, an invention or idea that will change the world. The problem is that I never know what to do with my ideas. I do have an MBA, which you might think would equip me for presenting these great ideas to some company or someone else who might know what to do with it. You'd be wrong, though. Although the MBA potentially increases my odds of appearing on The Apprentice, it's done very little to aid in my understanding of Patent Law. I usually just get all excited about an idea for half a day, then forget about it.

Well, this time I'm not forgetting. That's right, Moen, I'm talking to you.

One of my best ideas came to me while I was doing the dishes. It occurred to me that it took a lot of time to get the water just right - hot enough to scald off those pesky globs of tomato sauce without having to touch them, cool enough to avoid third degree burns, and at the right pressure that I didn't splash water all over myself. But then every time I had to stop scalding for a minute to scrub the pots and pans, I'd have to a) waste water by leaving the faucet running, or b) turn off the water completely and start all over when it was time to rinse. So, I came up with the idea of...(drum roll, please)...the faucet pause button.

The way it works is simple. You hit the pause button and the water stops. But then when you unpause, it's just how you left it when you were using it before - same temperature, same pressure. We have similar technology on garden hoses, what's to stop us from translating that to the kitchen? It was brilliant!

Imagine my disbelief when I saw my pause button on a Moen commercial many months later! They claim: "Its beautiful simplicity unclutters the countertop yet has room for smart functions, such as a Patented Pause Button to interrupt water flow and a toggle to quickly switch from steady stream to aerated spray." (note: I make no claim to having invented either the "toggle to quickly switch from steady stream to aerated spray" or the thing about the beautiful simplicity.)

"Patented"?! How did this happen?! How did Moen manage to steal my idea? I never told them about it. How did they get this information from my head without my knowing it? Was it a probe of some kind? Did it happen in my sleep? I've seen The Manchurian Candidate and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - I know this kind of thing is possible. I just want to know who let them in.

Currently, there are some pretty grand ideas in my mind: a music-sharing system even the RIAA would love, and a credit card that tracks your Subway SubClub points and your frequent flyer miles. But do you think I'm telling anyone this time? No way! Well, not on purpose anyway. Hold on, there's someone at the door...
  ¶ monger187 wrote this on 10/11/2004