From The Mind of Merc - New Ideas

(Note to self: next time I go away for the weekend, remember to take a laptop with me - otherwise blog posts don't get uploaded) Anyway...

Sometimes I find my mind wandering over various eclectic topics and occasionally I am inspired to write some of them down. Today (or, to be more accurate, 2 days ago) I was thinking about peculiar decisions our predecessors have made. This follows along similar lines to my previous questions post but is slightly different as it’s more – how did these seemingly bizarre events become normal to us?

For example: milking a cow– who thought of it first?
It’s such a seemingly innocuous and normal thing to do nowadays. But who was the first person to think ‘See those dangly things hanging underneath that cow over there? I’m going to go and squeeze them and drink whatever comes out’ (And before you think ‘ew’, thanks to that individual, we all do it)

Secondly, eating an egg. Eggs are a good healthy source of protein and used in many different dishes in many different ways. But who could look at a chicken’s bum and think ‘There’s a good source of food’.

Thirdly, tomatoes. For several centuries (even after its introduction to Britain) tomatoes were believed to be poisonous as they are a member of the deadly nightshade family. So what was going on in the mind of the person who decided to eat one? Did they not care? Did they do it for a bet? Were they on death row – their sentence being ‘Death by Tomato’? (If so, I bet the executioner was disappointed).

And finally, whoever thought cigarettes were a good idea?
Basically you take a leaf, crush it up, wrap it in paper, set it on fire(!) and then put it in your mouth. And not only that but you inhale the smoke – what possible harm could that do?
You have to wonder whether the person responsible was really that hard up for entertainment? Was setting fire to them the best thing they could find to do with them? And, if so, why put them in your mouth?
Also, did they experiment with different leaves? Or did they only have tobacco leaves to hand? Had people for years been smoking hawthorn leaves until the miraculous tobacco leaves arrived?

Makes you think...