Polar Mitts
Aliens are all the rage right now. And why shouldn't they be? They
slink through the grain fields of Signs. They roam the streets of New York in Men in Black II. And they make a touching surprise appearance as "the
Panopolis family, who came a long way to be here" in My Big Fat Greek
Wedding.
That said, it's easy to forget that aliens once played a serious role
in the development of American thought. Science fiction writers like Isaac Asimov,
Alfred Bester and Stanislaw
Lem once wove plausible but challenging predictions about the way
technology and society might interact in future times. A key topic of sci-fi speculation was the culture clash, manipulative
interplay and general mayhem created by the appearance or influence of
aliens on Earth.
Here's a science fiction scenario to consider:
1) Aliens decide to introduce a new technology to Earth.
2) In order to do so, they run a single commercial, making outrageous
(but true) claims about the product. They ship it to the first person
who orders it.
3) They then observe the Earthling using the technology in order to
study / destroy / help our primitive race.
Polar Mitts appear to have come to Earth through this method.
The Polar Mitts commercial warrants a story of its own. However, the
damn thing was only played once, around 6:45 a.m. on a Tuesday, on one
of the news channels that play constantly on the TVs mounted above my
desk at work. On it, people wearing Polar Mitts pick up red-hot coals, stick their
hands into stove burners and use a blowtorch to assault their own
hands.
Twenty bucks for the ability to have fireproof hands seemed like a
reasonable deal; after all, man has been struggling to beat fire for
millennia.
The gloves arrived about a week later, in a plain cardboard envelope
with no accompanying literature. This seemed particularly strange, since
these things are presumably falling into the hands of idiotic, lawsuit-prone
Americans. If there's any possible way to hurt oneself with a
product and then press a lawsuit, an American will find it.
Therefore, if you were the Earth-based retailer of "fireproof gloves,"
you might want to include a warning label of some sort.
But the mitts do not have this. Instead, they have two markings on them, etched into the rubbery mystery material that they're made from.
The first marking reads: "Lukä Designs." A search of the Web via Google came up with no results for such a company.
And, regrettably, extensive searching of the gloves for an imprint reading "made on Alpha Centauri" uncovered nothing.
The mystery aside, the gloves are amazing. You can remove a hot grill grate,
futz with live coals, and then replace the grate without so much as a
1st-degree burn. And should you ever need to reach into the blue flame
of a gas rangetop, Polar Mitts will keep your fingers cool and
comfortable as you caress the fire.
