New Invention to Take Americans to New Heights of Laziness

he invention has been creating a buzz around the world before it was even revealed. Its inventors and investors guaranteed it would be the next big thing. And it’s finally revealed—the Segway HT, or Human Transporter, and it will forever change the world. Especially America, where Americans are barely walking on their own feet or engaging in any natural cardio exercise at all. The Segway HT promises to reduce American voluntary movement by up to 100%.

The Segway was invented by Dean Kamen, and its being hailed as the world’s first dynamic self-balancing human transporter.

In a recent commune poll, when asked about the major problems facing their lives, most Americans responded, in popular order: Terrorism, natural biological illnesses such as cancer and AIDS, lack of income and jobs with high mobility, medical insurance skyrocketing, the uncertain global economy, and random slasher murders. “Walking” received less than 1% of the poll, outranked by waking up nude outdoors and alien invasions.

Through a technology coined Dynamic Stabilization by the Segway LLC company, gyroscopes and tilt sensors calculate the device user’s center of gravity 100 times every second, adjusting accordingly and creating a sense of balance that makes the Segway safer to use than, say, a skateboard or surfboard with wheels. The device is also constructed to sustain the weight of fat people, who will likely be the first major market of the product outside of industry.

The Segway HT is now available for corporate and industrial usage in plants and offices, and will likely make its way to the general consumer by 2002, though those who use the product are expected to be subject to severe ridicule until the Segway HT implants itself in the consciousness of all America.

Once available, the Segway HT will retail for approximately $8,000. In contrast, even most expensive brands of shoes retail for less than $100.

If the device becomes a mainstay of American culture, for use beyond just yuppies and trendy pricks, scientists predict a drop in pollution, an average weight gain of over 80 lbs. per person, and the blood of Americans to contain about 40% butter.

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"I have long been, and may always be, a confirmed bachelor. But like other people who say that, I am not gay.

I did meet one gay fellow quite a while back. It was 1954 when I met him, an affable fellow named Pitt. He wore bright clothes but that didn't send me any signal that he was gay. To my ears he had no special way of speaking and there was nothing immediately gay about him. I would venture to say if I hadn't accidentally found out through a misunderstanding one day, while we were standing next to each other at the men's room urinals, I would never have found out.

'I can't believe it,' I told him quite frankly. 'Why don't you like girls at all?'

'I like girls, Sampson,' the gay said simply, no less visibly masculine than myself. 'It's not a matter of liking or not liking someone, and it's not a matter of picking who you're going to sleep with. People are just born the way they are, and it doesn't make them all the same if they share one common thing between them.'

He went on to say, as I tapped the water out, 'You and me may be more alike than me and any gay man. We both have sisters named Stephanie, we both have brothers that we're competitive with in our lives, and we both love to just sit and talk about the good ol' days, the 1920s. Why should the one thing that's different about us keep us from being good friends?'

It really made me think, and it hurt—the idea that I, like everyone else in the world, picked one different thing like religion, skin color, or sexual orientation to get all worked up about when in a lot of ways all of us are like one another. From that day on whenever I meet someone new, even if they don't look like me or might seem a little strange at first glance, I put on a big smile and say, 'Hi, there, neighbor! I'm Sampson L. Hartwig. Maybe we're a little different, but maybe we'll find out we're a lot a like, too!'

I might as well mention that me and the gay fellow Pitt didn't see each other after another week or so, when I found out the biker gang I had joined with him was all gay. Only when one of them named Peter couldn't keep the secret any more did Pitt tell me the truth, that they were all hoping I would 'come around' once I got used to wearing the leather. It's just another thing that's different, yeah, but it looked awful painful in all those videos we watched, so I found another crew to ride with."

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"In my younger days I had a penpal named LeShandy. He was a boy roughly the same age and lived in a faraway place I had never heard of called Iceland.

Sometimes he would mention, to my surprise, that Iceland was very, very green. And he had been to Greenland once and it was covered with ice. He asked his father why this was the case and his father had told him that the Vikings once plundered both Iceland and Greenland.

They had gone to Greenland and found it unpleasant, rough terrain. They went to Iceland next and liked it very much, like that little bear with the just-right porridge and all. They didn't want anybody to take the place they wanted to live, so they called the green land Iceland and the ice land Greenland.

I told LeShandy his dad was a liar and he had made the entire story up because he didn't know why. LeShandy got very angry and never wrote me back, either that or he lost my address or died or something.

I've never had a penpal since, unless you count that little girl from El Salvador that I sent all that pocket change to. I can't remember her name but I know she needed a lot of innoculations and ate her weight in grain every week, the squat little pig."

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