I’ve never been able to pull off a handstand. Whether that’s a product of my total lack of upper body strength or the residual anxieties from when my mother pulled me out of gymnastics fearing I would impale myself mid-cartwheel (which I admit was quite possible), I’ll never know. But when you’re a kid, turning upside down provides fascinating entertainment; everything looks different and you discover things you’d never noticed before. So maybe it’s my deep-seated envy of those who CAN be upside-down that makes these gravity-defying concepts so cool.
Hopside Down
If there are two things in this world I love, it’s weird-looking crap and beer. Apparently, there’s a legitimate way combine the two, justifying the existence of Hopside Down, a glass specifically designed for beer with a hollowed center, allowing the outside to retain a normal glass shape, while the container portion is shaped like an upside-down beer bottle. Looks to me like it combines the raw toughness of drinking beer straight from the bottle with the intimidating power of wielding a broken-off bottle by the neck. That, plus the refined sophistication of drinking out of a glass and repeating as necessary.
Boskke’s Upside Down Sky Planters
One of the best things I brought to my freshman dorm room, other than lots of disinfectant and a Nerf gun, was a plant. He was a fernish-looking little dude named Jeffrey, and he became a sort of mascot, brightening the room and making our prison-like residence a little more homey. At least, he did for as long as I remembered to water him. From Jeffrey I learned two lessons: Plants are really worth having around, and I am less nurturing than the wilderness. Turns out, there’s a brilliant solution for people like me: the Boskke Upside Down Sky Planter. Not only does hanging your plant upside-down look totally counter-intuitively cool, with this gadget, it also capitalizes on gravity through an internal-reservoir system. This enables water to transfer directly into the roots, using up to 90 percent less water than normal pots, so it only needs to be watered twice a month. Oh Jeffrey, if only I had known of this planter sooner, perhaps you would’ve lived to see my sophomore year.
Upside-down calculator gifts
Since I was in about second grade, I’ve always thought I was a little bit cooler than everyone else because my name can be written upside down on a calculator (312217. Jealous?). Back when the only functions our calculators were required to have were basic arithmetic and they didn’t come with games and graphing capabilities, we had to entertain ourselves during class with the simple things, like 5378008 and 07734. Anyone else who, like myself, gets nostalgic about dicking around in elementary school can relive the glory days with this line of gear emblazoned with upside down numerical words. Valentine’s day is coming up folks — what better way to remind your sweetheart that 5508 51 345?
Upside-down cell phone design
While my first reaction to this recent patent was confusion and disdain, I’ve since played with at least six of my friends’ phones and discovered that this is actually the most brilliantly simple innovation of all time. Anyone who’s ever sent a gibberish T-9 interpretation (sober) or gotten a thumb cramp trying to carry on an hour-long conversation during lecture with a friend across campus will have similar bewilderment, followed by reverence, for the simple innovation of the upside-down cell phone design. It simply reverses the screen and keypad placement to more ergonomically fit the shape of the human hand (hint: fleshy, useless platform on the bottom, fingers on top). Now let’s just hope this catches on soon so I don’t look like such an idiot trying to fake it.
Upside-down bookshelf
Now for anyone who’s been inspired to add a little disorder into their lives by the aforementioned tchotchkes but can’t invest in a high-budget flip flop, give this do-it-yourself reversal a try and create your own inverted bookshelf, courtesy of Instructables.com. Using a normal bookshelf, a little bit of elastic and that staple gun you always keep lying around, you can befuddle your friends and family and securely suspend your books in a gravity-defying display. Provided you won’t be constantly disappointed to miss the satisfaction of watching your orgo textbook crash to the ground.