Illustration by Hannah Sun

My mind is a wealth of entrepreneurial genius. Unfortunately, the rest of the world hasn’t recognized this, yet. Some might say my ideas won’t make great business ventures. One might even argue there’s a reason I’m getting an MFA and not a business degree. Not to sound defensive, but my career path is my own career path, why won’t you just let me live my best life, Patricia!

What follows is a list of my five best and brightest ideas, which I think will change the world. Some are restaurant ideas, but most are just general concepts that humanity should adopt because I said so.

1) Replace water bottles with water balloons.
How often do you forget your water bottle? Every day, amiright? Imagine if instead of some big, clunky hunk of plastic, you could carry around a foldable, condom-sized piece of plastic. On break from class, you could just stop by your local water fountain, fill up that water balloon, then stick the end in your mouth to enjoy a cool refreshing drink. When you’re done, just put the empty balloon back in your bag to refill later. Think of all the plastic you’d be saving! And think of all the water! Do you ever really want an entire water bottle’s worth of water? Now, there are flaws to this idea, e.g., foldable water bottles have already been invented, one might forget a water balloon just as easily as one might forget a water bottle, etc.

2) Name all the animals you eat.
Yes, I mean literally name every animal product that goes into your body something like Lucy or Steve. How many more people would be vegetarians if we did this? I’m not saying you should stop eating animals if you don’t want to, but accept that you’re eating Richard, not just a nameless chicken. Also, go ahead and name all the dairy that you eat — and the plants too. Why not? Name every food that you eat, then tell your friends when they ask what you ate for lunch that your salad was Mark, LeeAnne, and Toby with a Penelope vinaigrette.

3) Stop teaching children the names for colors.
Do you feel like your artistic path was impeded by vocabulary and color theory? Getting rid of color names could change all that for future generations. Why are color names a thing we force children to learn? Who cares if Bobby knows whether a block is red or blue? Forcing children’s perspectives of colors into an ill-founded logic of “words” is just dumb. Think of how many artists have been stunted in early childhood because they were told “brown” wasn’t “green.” Also, think about how easily we could eradicate at least part of the gender concept if we just stopped giving names to colors. Just let children look at things and accept them! Why’s there gotta be a label?

4) Set age limits for voting rights.
Were you 17 and angry that your memaw could vote but you couldn’t? Well, you should have been. Frankly, the age requirement for voting rights is an atrocious example of agism that should be abolished. But, I don’t think that’s going to happen, so I’ve come up with an alternative solution. What if no one over the age of 55 could vote? Think of how much quicker we could all get what we want if we didn’t have to wait on everyone to put down their AARP cards? Imagine who would be president now! One might argue that not everyone over the age of 55 is a retired old coot who should get out of my way and let me cross their lawn whenever I want, but one might also argue that not every 17 year old is an irresponsible punk.

5) Popas!
Do you ever feel like tapas are absolute elitist bullshit? Are you plagued by elitism everyday and hoping to squash the 1% just a little? Then boy-howdy, do I have the idea for you. What if, instead of serving tapas in a fancy restaurant on tiny little plates and charging $100 for a single bite of food, we made tapas quick and easy? Combine tapas with those little push pop things we all remember from our childhood, thereby creating a vessel from which to enjoy your tapas on the go. Food trucks would pop up everywhere (pun intended), and everyone could eat tapas wherever and whenever they want! I haven’t necessarily worked out the kinks on this one, like how the tapas are placed into the push pop containers and how much people would charge for popas, but progress is progress.

If you have any money, and are willing to invest your fortunes in the nation’s future, hit me up.