11/30/12

I smell an Edison.

"This 'fart candle' is just a poop with some string pulled through it! I want my money back!"

I don't know if that's a real quote, but words to exact effect were said many, many times in the second half of the 19th century. Many times. See, it seems that after Thomas Edison dropped out of school, he made his living selling "novelty candles." He started in Kentucky but was essentially run out of the state after he sold a fart candle to the Chief of Police of Bowling Green (and impregnated both his daughter and wife).

Newark, New Jersey, however, was apparently hungry for fart candles, and the young Edison set up shop there for several years, until enough customers disregarded the important "Do not light, novelty purposes only" warning labels, and also ignored what had to be pretty blatant body language from Edison that he was about to impregnate as many of their female family members as possible. Both things should have been pretty easy to figure out, but New Jersians just aren't into making things easy, and Tom was on the road again. (All of this is also why, depending on what part of the country you're in, we call illegitimate children and fishy business transactions "Edisons.")

Isn't history something else?

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