If Memory Swerves™, 'twas on this day in history (March 10, 1891), that an
undertaker in Topeka, Kansas by the name of Almon Strowger patented the
Strowger Switch™, a device which led to the automation of telephone circuit
switching. Now, if that random factoid leaves you unimpressed, imagine being a
citizen of Topeka or Toledo or countless other sleepy hamlets on either side of the pond that are home to obscure invention or fifth-tier industry, and
every time your town was Yahoodled™, people were reminded that yours isn’t the
home of personal computing or motorcar production or shipbuilding — no, your
town’s claim to fame is bloody strowger switching, and ‘twill be forever and
ever, amen. Bloody hell, if I were from Topeka, I’d endeavor to expunge all
data on the Twitternet connecting Almon bloody Strowger to my hometown. I’d
hack into Wikipedialyte and relocate him to the Missouri side and no one would
be the Budweiser™. Of course, my efforts to disassociate from the heralded
circuit switcher would likely be thwarted by some wanker from the Topeka
Historical Society who'd be on the mourning telly trumpeting the tale of the
funeral director who took a break from pumping corpses full of formaldehyde to
design some rotary dial gizmo, and then he'd
invite everyone out to the commemorative Strowger Switch Days Parade, where they ask that you keep your intelligent phone apparatus out of plain sight, as the
ladies of the Strowger Society frown on the telecommunications advancements
that have made the work of their beloved Almon Strowger more or less obsolete.
