Most Useful Domestic Article in Existence in 1898

I pick this book up at odd moments and read a page or two at a time. It's a slow way to read a book...a couple pages at a time...but there it is. The Leading Facts of English History by D. H. Montgomery. Second Edition, Revised. Ginn & Company, Publishers, 1898.

I am on page 357 with only 46 pages to go. The book begins with "Britain before History begins" and continues through Roman occupation, the Danes, Saxons, Normans, Feudalism, Reformation, the Stuarts, the American Revolution, yada yada. To compress that much history into 403 pages is a feat in itself! To read it through, page by page, is another feat, if I do say so myself.

A lot of kings died at the hands of others in this book. As did the next king. And the next. Sometimes their whole families were killed by succeeding kings. The English fought the French, then the Germans/Austrians, then the Spanish, then the French again, then the Spanish again, on and on and on. The Irish and Scots come into the picture now and then. Suffice it to say, ain't nobody happy with anybody. Everybody's killing everybody.

If you've never before been convinced of the depravity of man's sinful nature, you should read an abbreviated history such as this. You will see that it is not just in this generation that nation wars against nation, and people against people, and person against person. The human race continues with an ongoing, disgusting, continuous self-murder that rolls from one generation to the next. I'm surprised we haven't gone extinct for we are super efficient at the killing of ourselves.

But that is not what I proposed to blog today. No, I was going to type some very short chit-chatty Question of the Day for you to ponder. I'm sorry about straying from my original thought.

I read of this item on page 356, at the end of the second paragraph (in case you have a copy of this book on your bookshelf, which I doubt...the only possible possessors of this book being my friends Paul and Laurie in Chico. They like books. A lot.)

But I digress...so onward to the Question of the Day!

Can you guess what Montgomery named as the "commonest, and perhaps at the same time the most useful domestic article in existence" in England in 1898 when this book was printed? (Clue...it was invented in 1834 and, no, it wasn't toilet paper.)

(Oops, I have to edit the date of this invention...Montgomery says it this way: "..between the years 1829 and 1834, a humble invention was perfected of which little was said at the time, but which contributed in no small degree to the comfort and convenience of every one.)

Leave your answer in the comments.

P.S. The year 1898 was a mere 112 years ago. A lot has happened since then. Life is totally amazing!
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Two Cars, Parked Side by Side

Back home again after a week with our granddaughter in Oregon. The update on the baby is that the baby is still cocooning in Momma's womb. Silly boy.

First night back "in town" we actually never made it home. We scheduled our flight home for the day prior to my next infusion of the clinical trial drug (or placebo, whichever). And since the airport is in the same town as the clinic and since the clinic is 65 miles from home, and since our flight came in at midnight, we decided to stay at a motel overnight, do our chemo thing next morning, then head home.

Our room at the motel was wayyyyy around back, which I thought was kinda weird, and obviously we were the ONLY guests in that wing for ours was the only car in that particular parking area.

Since it was late at night, it didn't take us long to put on our jammies and hop into bed. And it didn't take long for us to drift off into sleep. But it was just long enough for the motel's ONLY other guests to arrive. After 1:00 o'clock in the morning. Right next door. And they enjoyed talking for considerable time, and opening and closing doors, and talking some more. You can see where this is going, right? A grumble session! I'm grumbling.

They finally quieted down and we went back to snooze mode.

The next morning we slept in until 8 am. Not a sound from next door. We did not worry about keeping our voices down. Nor the laughter. Our family laughs a lot. At the dumbest things. But that's okay. At least we laugh.

The other guests had parked their little yellow car with Colorado license plates right next to ours. At least our car was not lonely during the night.

So here's my question of the day...Why in the world would a motel that obviously knows their rooms are not very soundproof install new guests right NEXT DOOR to their ONLY other guests at one o'clock in the morning? Especially when there are a gazillion empty unused rooms on that wing? Why, oh why, Mr. Ramada Inn in Omaha on 72nd?

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