Disclaimer: This article is based on actual news from the real world – honestly! However, it has been sprinkled with a healthy dose of satire.
STOWE, Vt. — A crisis has been quietly gathering on America’s bumpers, and until now, no one had the courage to call it out. Every day, millions of drivers reverse their vehicles guided by a lens smeared with road grime. Up until now, there has been no way to solve this problem. The problem being people’s unwillingness to get out of their cars, walk six feet, and wipe the camera lens clean with a napkin or their shirt or anything.
No more pesky walking to the back of the car! (LensLizard)
Enter Klein, a Stowe, Vermont, resident who looked at this neglected catastrophe and did what great minds do: he bolted a squirt gun to a license plate and plans to charge lazy people $149 for it.
The device is called Lens Lizard, which is the kind of name you land on after workshopping “Bumper Spritzer” and “The Rear Moistener” and deciding those sounded more like names for bidets. It attaches to the back of your license plate and, with the push of a button from inside the vehicle, sprays windshield wiper fluid directly onto your backup camera. Klein describes the experience as “like magic,” continuing the proud American tradition of using the word magic to sell expensive things that do not seem like magic.
“It was really fun to have it work from inside the car without having to get out,” Klein said, describing what previous generations called “laziness” with the confidence of a man trying to sell you something rebranded as innovation.
Klein insists this is primarily a safety issue, which seems like a stretch. “If you get in and it’s blocked, you don’t have to get out and go wipe it,” he explained, outlining a nightmare scenario in which an adult human being is forced to briefly stand up. “Or wipe it before you get in. Or not do it at all and hit things.” The spectrum of options Klein presented portrays a world in which a six-foot walk to your bumper is a Sophie’s Choice between mild effort and total destruction.
The device has raised nearly $400,000 on Kickstarter, which means roughly four thousand people have independently concluded that the thing standing between them and vehicular safety was a $99 squirt bottle they didn’t have to aim themselves. The setup will retail for $149 after the campaign, presumably reflecting the added cost of not making you feel like you’re on Kickstarter anymore.
Klein also plans to develop a version with a built-in camera for pre-2018 vehicles, which is how you know the original version is going well: eventually, this path leads to a Lens Lizard cleaning device for the Lens Lizard. It’s an ouroboros of automotive convenience.
Klein is auditioning for Shark Tank, where he will presumably stand before five billionaires and explain with the conviction of a moonshot founder that Americans need a motorized apparatus to clean a surface they could reach with their arm. Mark Cuban will nod slowly. Lori Greiner will ask about the patent. Kevin O’Leary will offer $200,000 for 40% equity and the rights to Klein’s firstborn, and Klein will counter with 15% because he knows what he’s got.
He’s got a squirt gun on a license plate.
This story is based on fully factual news, but if we got it wrong, blame these guys, we’re just here to make it funny.
