Fantasy Objects
- Left handed monkey wrench
- A left handed monkey wrench?
- Bucket of prop wash
- I was in the Navy for a few years, and a favorite request from the
old Chief to a new SA (seaman apprentice) was to go aft and get a
bucket of prop wash. Everyone he'd ask had been subjected to the
same ruse, so the poor bastard would be sent from compartment to
compartment with a bucket in his hand until finally some kind soul
would let him in on the secret.
- Shoreline
- 30 meters of shoreline
- Smoke shifter
- When I was in Boy Scouts I went to Goshen scout camp for 1 week
each summer. Each new scout, myself included, was always sent on
"errands" to find certain things around camp. Such as 30 feet of
shoreline, a left-handed smoke shifter, or a bacon stretcher.
- What I'll never forget was during one of my last years as a scout
I was down talking to the Quartermaster when a new scout showed up
asking for a left-handed smoke shifter. Without missing a beat, the
QM grabbed a stick, some tape & some cardboard & made a left-handed
smoke shifter. I would've loved to have seen the faces of the people
who sent this novice on a fools errand when the kid came back with a
real left-handed smoke shifter. Tom Ryan Tom@gdol.com
- Brass magnet
- For example, in one instance, one co-op was told to go get a
"brass magnet" that was needed to get a part out of a plating solution
tank. As can be imagined, a wild goose chase ensued. But that is the
subject of another story.
- Spaghetti tree
- The subject of a '80s BBC tv April Fools special.
- Liquid Magnets
- Up on the top shelf in the back room, you will find a small jar of
Liquid Magnets. I find it works better than glue for holding pieces of
metal together.
- Piston return spring
- Would someone please go fetch me a piston return spring?
- Turn signal return-nut
- How about a turn signal return-nut?
- Staple gun attachments
- Also could you bring me the staple gun, but I don't need the
staples, get the thumb tack and Paper clip attachments, which work
with the staple gun, out if that large closet downstairs.
- Board stretcher
- When I used to work for a construction company (in my laboring
days) we used to send the new guy for the "Board stretcher".
Statements like "Yea, it's orange, about 2 feet long, on one of the
bottom shelves on the van" would keep him looking for what seemed
like hours! Sexist statement: (For those woman and girly-men out
there, there aren't any board stretchers in existence on the average
construction sight) Mike Engle 19 Sep 94
- Bacon stretcher
- Especially useful on camp outs when the food supply gets low.
- Dehydrated water
- When I used to work as a dishwasher in a small Italian
Restaurant we would always send the new employees to the store
room for a can of dehydrated water. One kid actually searched for a
half hour and came back saying that we must be out of it. I think he
was the one out of it. Jeff
- Wire straightner
- Needed when you don't want the rushing electrons to weaken the
wire at sharp bends and kinks; they might begin to leak out of the
wire at the weak points causing untold losses
- Pokka-dot paint
- Yea, the one with the pink and blue pokka-dots.
- Striped paint
- Be sure to get the white paint with the black stripes and not the
black paint with white stripes.
- Clock reverser
- A clock reverser for clocks that begin to run counter clockwise
also used for sun dials that have gotten out of adjustment
- Gravity shield
- To shield gravitational force and make things lighter.
- FTL Engine
- A faster than light engine
- Neutronium
- A cc of neutronium masses about 10^14 grams, that is it weighs
over 100 million tons near the Earth's surface
- Superfluid hydrogen
- Moleculear hydrogen in the ortho state, when spins are opposite,
does act like Bosons but the transition to the superfluid state may
take place below 1 picoKelvin, if at all.
- Kryptonite
- Ah la, Superman.
- Hyperon accelerator
- Used in dragsters to increase tire friction so they can accelerate
faster.
- Thermal battery
- The thermal battery stores cold, to be used when the air
conditioning goes out.
- Four dimensional Klein bottle
- A two-liter four dimensional Klein bottle, and make sure that
none of the surfaces intersect
- Sine waver
- A sine waver, to put the proper curves back in sines that have
accidentlly gotten staightened out (with a wire straightener?)
- Tachyon generator
- produces particles that travel at super luminal speeds; used for
near instantanious communication with people in other galaxies.
- DC Transformer
- A DC Transformer can actually be made using superconductors
- Spray De-ionizer
- A can of spray de-ionizer used to create a conducting path for the
discharge of static electricity
- Negative resistor
- Used as a voltage amplifier, the opposite of a normal resistor
that reduces voltage when a current flows through it
- Magnetic monopole
- Physicists have spend millions of dollars over the past two
decades looking for evidence of the magnetic monopole. Someone in
California thought one had passed though a superconducting loop in
'81, but retracted the report in '89.
- Also called
- gofer jokes, novice send-outs, jobs for new guys, fool's errands, ...
- Needed list
- Need fantasy objects in the following areas: medical,
agricultural, astronautical, chemical, publishing, computers,
biological, among others...
- Categories
- Symmetrical objects given an odd handedness: left handed monkey
wrench
- Fantasy objects from familiar sounding words: 30 meters of
shoreline, a bucket of prop wash
- Words that contadict each other: dehydrated water
- Stretchers of various types: bacon, board
- Things that exist but are much too big or expensive to get. These have
the disadvantage that the novice may actually get one. Then you have to
either pay for it or send it back. Either way you look like a fool.
- Things that actually exist but sound like they shouldn't: a DC
transformer, a negative resistor,
- Products may be named after fantasy objects, spoiling the joke:
liquid solder.
- Send more examples of fantasy objects for the collection to Eric T. Lane.
Updated 15 September 2001