原创 Is it alright experiment on family members?

I've recently started to consider whether or not it would be right and proper for me to perform an experiment on a member of my family.

The modern world in the form of today's telecommunications systems couldn’t have come at a better time for my wife (Gina the Gorgeous). As we lay in bed at night, I fall asleep to the gentle "ping" sounds of incoming emails and text messages arriving on her various smartphone and tablet devices.

The funny thing is that Gina is rarely in the same room as her mobile devices -- she's set up a sort of "command and control" center in a corner of the kitchen where these little rascals are typically to be found basking on the counter gorging themselves on electricity (or charging, if you prefer).

As an aside, this reminds me of my mother, who has developed the uncanny ability to be at the farthest possible distance from her purse in whatever building she is currently residing. If she's in a downstairs room on the northeast corner of my brother's house, for example, then you can bet your life that her purse will have found its way to the far side of an upstairs bedroom on the southwest corner of the building, and vice versa. It's as though the purse has a life of its own.

Of course, my mother constantly decides that she needs access to something in her purse. And, of course, someone else (like yours truly) is invariably dispatched to track the little rascal down. The amazing thing is that, just a few minutes later, we will find ourselves in another part of the house sans la bourse. It's like magic. If she decided to perform this as an act on the variety hall stage I could retire. But we digress...

A typical evening will find Gina and myself relaxing in our family room. It may be that I am in the middle of regaling Gina with a tale of engineering derring-do when a "ping" comes from the kitchen. It's like watching a Pavlovian performance. Her hand starts to twitch and she begins squirming in her chair. Eventually she can restrain herself no longer; she will leap to her feet and -- with a "Hold that thought!" -- she will race away to see what earth-shattering news has arrived from the outside world.

Sad to relate, the thought cannot be held. By the time Gina returns, I've completely forgotten what we were talking about. It's very frustrating because I'm sure it would have been a very funny story. Undeterred, I may commence another conversation, only to be interrupted by a new "ping."

When this happened yesterday evening, I started thinking that it might be fun to create a wireless device whose sole function was to go "ping." I could hide this gizmo in the vicinity of Gina's smartphones and tablet computers and then trigger the little scamp using a companion device hidden in my pocket. Just a few seconds after Gina started to tell me one of her stories, I could instigate a "ping" in the kitchen.

The more I come to think about it, the more I'm attracted by this idea. It could come in very handy on those occasions when Gina finds herself forced to remind me of the myriad things she needs me to do around the house. As soon as I detected such an occurrence on the horizon, a "ping" could emanate from the kitchen, and I could raise a quizzical eyebrow that practically shouts "I wonder who that could be."

The great thing is that Gina receives so many messages on so many devices that I'm sure she'd get distracted by other items that were already there. I wonder how long it would take her to realize what was happening. I also wonder how many of these devices I could sell.