Dear reader,
You and I are about to step into a make-believe time machine in the shape of a giant plantain made of exotic materials. Sit down and buckle up because we are traveling back to prehistoric time. Before twitter, when the world wasn’t about men who wore sunglasses insulting minorities. Before television, when your favorite cable channel was always scrambled but you still tuned in case something came through. Even before the magic phone that gave you a false sense of happiness because other people make-believe liked you. I’m talking about the time when language was limited and we speak like this when talk.
Back then, everything was difficult. Few things had been invented. We were still figuring out a lot of the things we take for granted today. Things like words, math, and even coffee. Yes, no one had actually thought about boiling the seed of the coffee plant. Morning meetings were the worst. You saw the world before a chemical fix became available. Mornings meant enduring the little annoying things the office Karen did. It was brutal. Much more than that time when we saw the one guy get mauled by a giant cockroach.
We have now traveled to a world where people are struggling with basic chores like carrying food around. Hunters would spend days pursuing their prey to then having to walk all the way back with their hands full of random organs. It was a hassle. Today, the modern man will not even entertain the idea of doing a second trip in order to bring the groceries into the house. We prefer to risk falling down and breaking a hip than to take a second trip. It was really difficult for prehistoric man to carry things around. That is until a genius came up with the greatest invention ever.
You might think I’m talking about penicillin, splitting the atom, free online adult websites, the electrical bulb, or even the steam engine. No, not these. They are not the greatest inventions ever. Close, but not quite. The greatest invention ever is the bucket.
It is now time for me to beg you to share my thoughts about buckets.
Inventing the bucket required a level of genius that was not commonly found during prehistoric times. Someone saw a hole and wished they could grab it from the floor and take it with them. Think about that for a minute. A hole is not something that you can move. It can be covered, then made somewhere else but that’s a different hole. It isn’t portable. This genius realized that if they took something and molded it with the shape of a hole then they could carry things around inside it.
The invention made people freak out. How are you transporting so many things inside a hole and how is this hole moving? How can you carry a hole?! It was maddening to the point that a meeting among all the tribe chiefs was called. The chief of the tribe of the fellow who invented the bucket decided to show off and brought some cheese, pepperoni, olives, and crackers in the bucket in order to setup a charcuterie board. The other chiefs were angry because they were outdone. How dare this man insult us with the flagrant use of this cutting-edge technology. They were insulted because none of them had bought anything besides a two liter bottle of soda. One chief just brought napkins. Government meetings have always had cheap food. This was no exception.
You and I are standing behind a tree watching all of this unfold. The chiefs are sitting in a semicircle because the circle had not been invented, much less the round table. They were arguing about the stunt the one chief pulled. That is until one chief spoke up and demanded the technology be shared. We looked at each other when recognizing this was the first trade war. The first time some dumbass politician was going to start imposing tariffs on everyday things for no purpose beyond annoying us. It would have been nice to record the momentous occasion, but my phone was low on battery and I wanted to watch funny videos on the way back.
Going back to the chiefs now. The one chief proposed sharing the bucket in exchange for other goods. The plan sounded great until they realized there was one bucket and they couldn’t all carry the goods they were trading at the same time. Another argument exploded as they fought about who would get first dibs on the bucket. Since cars hadn’t been invented, the rules of who got dibs on things were still not quite clear.
I still remember when they calmed down because someone suggested each of them get one bucket. The genius fellow had been now tasked to make more buckets for the chiefs. It wasn’t hard, but they didn’t want to do it as it was not in their job description. Typical government employee behavior. An agreement was made that the new buckets would be made and delivered to each chief by the time the carcass of a sabretooth tiger decomposed. Mind you, they didn’t have dates, numbers, calendars, or anything like that. They lived in the same way my daughter lives: with a lack of time awareness that rivals the theory of relativity. I cannot understand how is it possible that I can travel five hundred miles and five hundred more in the time she does her hair and makeup.
The day the buckets were to be delivered arrived. The chiefs were anxious to get their new toys. Each of them had ordered their men to go and make a pile of things to carry. One by one they went through their pile and carried the stuff somewhere else. Remember how happy they were? That is until one dude complained that they wanted to store things on the wall. What? The wall? You mean make a hole on the wall? No, they meant they wanted to be able to put the portable bucket sideways and store things there. This was another unknown genius taking the original idea and finding new ways to use it. Like that guy who figured out crude oil could be turned into little plastic figurines in the shape of characters from a space movie and make billions.
Let’s think about the bucket in the wall for a moment. A bucket in a wall is a hole that is up and away from the ground. Caves are a bigger version of that. A portable hole that could be mounted sideways was a portable cave. They could now store things vertically. That’s the moment the bin store business model became viable. Though it took some millennia for the modern OCD patient to really take advantage of the different organizational systems they offer.
It was time for us to get back into the time machine. It didn’t make sense to stay any longer because we were going back one second after we left. That’s the thing about time travel. You never have an excuse to be late for anything. Next time, we are going to travel into the future to watch how the inflatable pizza slice was invented. An invention so ahead of its time that Time magazine called it the best thing since sliced bread. Until then my friend. I hope next time you see a bucket at the local hardware store you can appreciate how magical it is. Remember, it is a hole you can take with you. Unlike your neighbor, a hole with whom you’d rather not spend any time.