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Department of Forgotten Things | Issue # 2

The Department of Forgotten Things is tasked with preserving the nation's ideas. It does so by cataloging ideas that have been -- or may yet be -- forgotten. Submissions welcome.

Issue #2
Fabricant: Ryan Murdock
Idea: Oversized Checks
Description: Convince a bank to issue oversized legitimate personal checks for its customers for actual use, like the ones used in Publishers Clearing House and on game shows.  They could make a day of it, and customers would be able to use the checks however they want.  Grocery shopping would never be more fun!  I dream of taking a giant check to my old cable company, who is still sending me bills from two years ago that I have been fighting because they made an error.  Or showing up at my doctor to pay my $25 co-pay with a check the size of a beach towel.  "I don't have cash, do you take checks?" How irrelevant are checks anyway?

The Department of Forgotten Things | Issue # 1

Introduction
The average person will have 19,273 original ideas over the course of her lifetime. (Not true). Some ideas will be executed; they may be very good -- like the invention of basketball -- or very bad -- like the invention of the hair crimper. Others will be abandoned because execution would require tools that most civilians do not possess. Some will become all that could have been, and these will be heavy with the weight of regret. But most will be forgotten.

For example, in 1972 Jamal Richardson of Indianapolis, Indiana, wrote the lyrics to a song called "Like I Told You, I Like My Butter Sweet" on a cocktail napkin at a Macky's Bar on Lincoln Boulevard. For three years, he kept this napkin in a shoebox where he also kept the love letters from the ex-girlfriend who had inspired the song. But because he was tone deaf, played no instruments, and told no one the secrets of his heart, Mr. Richardson never recorded the song. When he married, his new wife discovered and then burned the shoebox. The lyrics were lost. (Not true).

To prevent such losses, the Department of Forgotten Things is tasked with preserving the nation's ideas. It does so by cataloging ideas that have been -- or may yet be -- forgotten. Submissions welcome.

Issue # 1
Idea: Spy Gym
Description: A gym designed around the theme of espionage. All exercises involve spy-like activities. Climbing with a grappling hook. Laser tag in the fashion of a sniper. Doing that acrobatic thing you see in movies, where you have to get across a room without touching a laser. Zip line. Wrestling opponents on the roof of the building. That kind of thing.