The Greatest Toy ever invented

There have been some truly remarkable Inventions during the course of American History.

Take for example:

1835 – The Wrench

1837 – The Self-Polishing Cast Steel Plow

1853 – Potato Chips, Potatoe Chips, Tater Chips

1857 – Rolled Toilet Paper

1866 – The Urinal

1881 – The Electric Chair

1891 – The Zipper

You get the idea….

But, few inventions in the History of our great land can compare to the 1975 invention of possibly the greatest toy to ever hit the inhabitants of the Planet Earth.

The place is Los Gatos, California. A Genius, not given nearly enough notoriety in today’s History books, named Gary Dahl, took an unruly, wild, undomesticated slab of Granite….and over the course of thousands of hours in his basement laboratory, he trained that hunk of Earthen Material to become something that would forever rock the future of humanity. Gary Dahl had successfully trained the world’s first…..

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Pet Rock!

Yes, kids today may have their X-Box’s, their Ipod’s, their PlayStation’s, their PC’s, their I-Phones, their Hannah Montana Pez-Dispensers, their Gameboys, their PSP’s, their STD’s, their Netbooks, their Kindles, etc……..but back in my day, in the late, great 1970′s…..you were Jack-Squat unless you owned at least one Pet Rock!

Pet Rocks were Awesome Dude! They required no feeding, no watering, no changing of litter, no pooper-scooping, no bathing, no shots, no kennels, no leashes, no pet deposits, etc. The list is endless of all the positive aspects of the little buggers.

They also could do amazing feats:

They could FLY!! Yes, a typical pet rock, grasped firmly in one’s hand, and then launched at high velocity through the air…..would actually FLY!! Let’s see your typical Small Terrier do that!

They could dive into water AND hold their breath for UNBELIEVABLY long periods of time!!
Yes,….you could drop your pet rock into any receptacle of water and watch in amazement as the little fellow would quickly dive his way to the bottom and then hold his/her breath for minutes, hours, or even days, until you retrieved it! Let’s see your favorite Hydrophobic Cat from Hell do that!

A Pet Rock could tell you the Precise Weather at that given moment, decades before the fancy home weather systems of today were ever invented. A Pet Rock that wandered into the house wet, told you that it was raining outside. A Pet Rock that burned your hand told you that it was sunny and hot outside. A Pet Rock that would go missing for days, only to be found upside down and unconscious in a nearby alley…would tell you that it was very windy the day he first went missing. You get the Picture.

Pet Rocks possessed Super-Human strength. A Pet Rock assigned the task of watching over an important stack of papers…would spend endless hours, without benefit of sleep or food, exerting great strength to it’s lower body to ensure that enough downward pressure was applied to your papers that they would not blow away or move in any way.

Unbelievable!

My Pet Rock was named “Steve“.

I lost “Steve” (May he rest in Peace…) sometime in late 1979. Steve was out in the yard and somehow ended up trying to cross the highway in front of our home. He almost made it. A 1972 AMC PACER, being driven by a half-drunk Juvenile Delinquent hopped-up on Grape Slurpee and Three-Dozen Pixie Sticks….hit poor Steve square to the body, instantly pulverizing him into an unrecognizable little pile of gravel. I still tear up just thinking about it…..

I never owned another Pet Rock after that…

Out of respect for Steve.

Rest in Peace old Friend.

Pet Rocks eventually died out over the years. Here in the last decade, they tried to make a comeback as a new “High-Tech” version of the great toy was introduced that would do tricks and stunts downloaded from the Internet.

My young son briefly owned one of these new Pet Rocks.

He named it “Dwayne Johnson“.

These new Pet Rock’s did NOT catch on.

That’s the way it should be.

Nothing can replace the pure joy of the original Pet Rock!

Godspeed Steve!

Godspeed!