Every time I get into a fistfight with a prominent scientist, it always seems like it’s over the subject of perpetual motion machines, and whether or not I could build one. So this week I decided to put my guns in the ground and settle this argument once and for all the mature way: by making them look stupid. I knew this was an engineering problem that had vexed scientists for millennia, and I figured I had an entire weekend to kill, so what the hell.

My first thought was that kidnapping the Energizer Bunny was the answer, but then I read on an Urban Legends website that that thing actually runs on Ethanol or cow gas or something, it’s really all just a fraud. Bummer aside, I was glad I read that before I went to all the trouble of renting a full-body wolf suit.

Then I was thinking the key had to be in one of those M.C. Escher drawings, since that dude seems to have the inside track on mind-bending bullshit. So I pulled some plywood off the walls of my neighbor Hamms’ tool shed and set out to build an M.C. Escher staircase inside the Bricks Manor, since once I had one of those, pretty much anything would work as a perpetual motion machine: a slinky, a softball, a random drunk off the street. Pretty much anything that can fall downstairs forever would do the trick.

Let me be the first to say that M.C. Escher shit is confusing as hell to build. That dude might have had a good eye for color or whatever, but he definitely flunked the class where they teach you to make easy-to-follow blueprints. Twice I ended up with staircases that descended into themselves, like a snake crawling up its own ass, only not as funny. You can only bang your shins or your chin so many times before that shit gets old. The third time I ended up with a staircase into some weird parallel dimension I didn’t recognize at all. My neighbor Mitch said it was my attic, but I told him I didn’t order a house with one of those, since I couldn’t afford a lot of fancy options back then.

The fourth time I figured I’d just keep building until I got it right, and I ended up in Hamms’ basement again, where I ran out of sky to build into. Then Hamms was complaining some bullshit about how there was a staircase coming out of my bathroom window, arcing over his house, then running back in his living room window, through his house and down into his basement, and also that his shed was missing. I told him this was impossible, but he didn’t see the Escher drawing as compelling evidence the way I did.

So I had to give up on the whole Escher plan, thanks to Hamms’ lack of vision. But that’s when that famous scientific maxim hit me: it’s not the size of the boat; it’s the motion of Laotians. What I needed was some cheap immigrant labor.

A quick trip to the Dollar Store cleared up my misconception that the people there will do anything you want for a dollar. But I did find my perpetual-motion answer in the place I was least expecting it: the balloon aisle.

You know those balloons with the rubber band attached that you make a fist around, then you punch the balloon like it was your boss and it bounces back and forth on your hand forever? I love those things. And we all know how awesome they are in old-folks homes and china stores, but I didn’t realize until right then that they’re also a scientific breakthrough. You’ve only got to hit one of those things once, hang on, and whamo! You’ve got yourself perpetual motion. So I wasted no time buying out the store’s entire stock and headed home, with a punch-balloon pumping on each hand.

Granted, that made driving home kind of tricky, but I got there. And further experimentation in the Bricks laboratories proved it: I was a genius. I’m not sure what my punch-balloon perpetual motion machine is going to be good for, but if you need something that makes a lot of noise, pisses off everyone in the room and makes the elderly uneasy without using up any power, then this thing is made to order. And I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before I figure out how to harness the punch-balloon’s power. I’ve already taught Foghat to use one, and I can tell it’s going to save him a lot of time and energy.

I was excited to share my discovery with Hamms, but he was too crabby that the workers he hired to tear down my staircase didn’t speak any English, so he wasn’t in the right mindset to appreciate the thrill of scientific discovery. But late tonight, after Hamms has had time to calm down some, I’m going let Foghat loose in Hamms’ bedroom to demonstrate the magic of punch-balloon energy, and that should make a believer out of him. Either that or the constant wob-wob-wob noise emanating from Bricks Manor 24 hours a day will draw him over like a moth to a bug zapper. Bricks out.