Sporks: Behold the Glorious Future
by Dave Hinge

Dave Hinge is the Director of the International Sandwich Institute. His latest offering is the tome Revising Basic Sandwich Theory: Projected Global Impact of the Reuben Paradigm.

Sporks are a very serious thing. While many in the public feel content to mock sporks, they are fools. The spork is perhaps the most amazing human achievement of the past two hundred and thirty-two years. Eclipsed perhaps only by the aeroplane, the spork is a matter of pure genius. It is at once a fork and a spoon, and yet it is neither.

In an age of dwindling natural resources, it is important that our consumer-driven economy conserve every bit of material. Why spend twice as much energy producing a fork and a spoon when you can produce a single spork for half the cost?

The same can be said about the popularity of the new camera-phone. For years, going back to the nineteenth century, people have been craving a contraption which is both a camera and a phone. Now they have it and now we need not waste our precious metals and plastics on producing just phones or just cameras. We have camera-phones and we have sporks.

How glorious.

Hopefully new conservation-minded products will be on the horizon. Perhaps today some plucky young scientist is working on a rake-frying pan. Fry eggs and rake your leaves with only one instrument. No more searching through the kitchen or garage when you need to proper tool. Or the bottle opener-iron lung; another wonderful idea which will save countless dollars. Maybe the bicycle-sombrero won’t be too far off; I can foresee a wondrous future where you can ride your hat to work. Just after that scientists will invent the photo album-gargoyle. It’s a gargoyle, perfect for any gothic decoration on your castle, but it also holds and displays photographs of your loved ones. What about a combination between a coffin and chewing gum? That would be perfect for any occasion. And let’s not forget the ironing board-rowboat or the cigarette lighter-Persian rug or the all important dueling pistol-wheelbarrow.

For each combination we cut our society’s waste and pollution in half. So the next time you see a neat two-in-one product make sure you purchase it. Not for yourself, but for your children, and your children’s children and for those people’s planet’s future.