There Should Be An App for That

I like to think I am technologically savvy. I also like to think I look like Angelina Jolie, but that’s beside the point. Being technologically savvy, I happen to know that an ‘app’ (short for application) is a nifty little cell-phone program you can use to do things you wouldn’t even have thought of doing if there weren’t an app to make it possible.

For example, there is an app to let you go around making cow sounds, which I suppose would come in handy were you trying to communicate with our bovine brethren. There is also a game app that lets you score points by licking your phone’s screen. I can't imagine any circumstance under which I would want to do this, but apparently many people have downloaded this particular app. I'm pretty sure I don't want to know any of those people.

Another hugely popular app lets you emit loud bodily noises normally considered unacceptable in polite society. This app magnifies the sound so that people will think you have serious gastrointestinal issues. Why anyone would want people to think such a thing is beyond me, but, hey, it's a free country, and there’s an app for that.

There's also an app that teaches you how to say dirty words in a variety of languages. And for those of us who are frequently late for work and in need of a convincing excuse, there is even an excuse generator app.

Hundreds of thousands of apps already exist, and developers are working feverishly every day to create even more. Just in the time it takes you to lick your screen a couple of times and try out a few foreign phrases that would make your mother wash your mouth out with soap (if only she knew what you were saying), there will no doubt be a dozen more.

But I can think of a few other apps that someone should invent right away. For instance, I could certainly use a Teenager Tune Out Terminator app. This program would automatically shoot a high-pitched, impossible-to-ignore sound into the ears of certain adolescents who claim not to have heard me tell them something. And I would love to have a Chore Completion Assistant app that at my command would disable all the electronic devices that seem to prevent my kids from doing their chores.

I’d also like to have a Bug Zapper app that could send out some kind of radioactive signal that would fry every creepy crawly or flying insect in my vicinity. And I wouldn’t mind having an app that would talk sense into me when I’m about to try on a bathing suit. I could take a picture of the suit with my phone, and then my app would give me an honest assessment, which would usually sound something like this: “Honey, Get Real.” I’d call that my Girlfriend App.

There should definitely be an app for that.

~ Jackie Papandrew ~
Copyright © 2010
All Rights Reserved

Jackie Papandrew is an award-winning writer, syndicated humor columnist, coffee addict and mom to a motley crew of children and pets who provide a steady stream of column ideas and dirt. She's also wife to a very patient man who had no idea, years ago when he still had time to escape, what he was getting himself into. Visit her website at:  JackiePapandrew.com

[ by Jackie Papandrew Copyright © 2010, (me@jackiepapandrew.com) -- submitted by: Jackie Papandrew ]