5 ways to beat depression with a stick.

Having been unsuccessful in my attempts to engage in a bit of water-frolicking fun this morning, it got me thinking: Whilst new inventions change the world, and technology makes our lives easier (?); have we really come that far? Below, is a list of situations which occur each and every day in my house, which wouldn't occur had the items in question still been played by the antediluvian counterparts of yore.

1) You go to draw a bath, not checking the water temperature (why would you, it's timed on a clock, in your bedroom! If it's a clock in your bedroom, well then it's got to be right). You fill the entire tub (presumably not a free-standing, bronze affair - if it is, stop reading now); dip a toe in, already wincing because you know it's going to be too hot. But no, it's not. It's freezing cold. You run the hot tap alone, in a vain attempt to make the temperature rise to the level of luke-warm coffee, but, alas!, it's too late. All you're left with is a bath full of water which resides somewhere between 'absolute zero' and 'piss'.

I) Solution: Copper-plated bathtubs, subserviently filled by an impoverished hag in an apron.

A) Drawbacks: More time-consuming; but who cares, she can get up at 5.

2) You fling the fridge door closed assuming that the magnets will do their one job - stick. But, Alas!, you return three hours later to fetch another pasty, and realise to your horror that the door has, in fact, been resting slightly ajar. You're left with a kitchen that smells like a sewer (bacteria fail), a fridge which is effectively filled with a few hundred quids worth of excrement, and a pained expression.

II) Solution: Employ Grecian ingenuity.

B) Drawbacks: Not a lot of people own an underground storage facility (preferably a cave); there is the expense involved with transporting ice down from the mountains, and, the structural rigidity of your make-shift fridge could be compromised in a slight shower.

3) A fuse breaks, the circuit breaker employs some 21st century cunning, and trips all of the lights off. "No problem", you assume, "there'll be a torch somewhere around". Now, I'm sure there is - but I'll eat my own rectifier tube if it's in a place which is accessible in the dark. Let's face it, it's either in a drawer, or in an underground refrigerator. Or wait, maybe it's somewhere else. You know what I mean there.

III) Solution: Candles.

C) Drawbacks: Have been known to cause fires.

4) You stub your toe on an irritatingly placed furniture protrusion; it happens, all the time. You cruse the inanimate bastard to hell, that's fine - but it achieves nothing. I see an easy remedy for this.

IV) Solution: Jelly house.

D) Drawbacks: Liable to collapse under influence of candles.

5) The doorbell rings, you slouch off to answer it; not sure what you were doing, probably masturbating or just gurning at your own brilliance in a mirror. It is one of three people: Jesus (some form), Man-of-Electricity, or Generic-salesman-of-ephemera. If it's the former, you can take one of two routes: Unabashedly unpleasant, or glazed cordiality. If it's the salesman-of-woe, listen to the preamble, and then bow out politely. If it's the ceremonial man-of-pomp, well, acquiesce immediately.

V) Solution: Replace door with crocodile/move/become a hermit/do away with need for extraneous goods.

E) Drawbacks: Possibility of death.

All of these ideas are free to use.