Background:

Frequently, residential houses have areas that are dangerous in some way: perhaps a railing that is a little wobbly (but will probably stay attached), a garage door that is missing the “don’t crush a person” electric eye sensor, or a bookshelf with a three-hundred-pound vase that is perilously perched on the top shelf.

The Issue:

Previously, the best solution to these situations—besides actually remedying them—was to “be careful.”

But thanks to video games and movies, we now have a better solution: call attention to the danger with an ostentatious and highly-visible origami death trap. (Despite the name, the trap is just made of paper, and is not actually dangerous.)

Proposal:

Let’s examine a concrete situation where there is a kitchen counter, a chair, and a breakfast table (Figure 1). It is appealing for a person sitting at the breakfast table to casually lean back the chair on two legs. However, due to the way the kitchen counter works, if the person leans the chair too far back, what they think will happen (they will fall on the ground, slightly embarrassed) is much less severe than what will actually happen (their head will be cleft from their body by the guillotine-like edge of the kitchen counter).

In order to solve this problem, we must simply mark the kitchen counter with deadly spikes made out of junk mail paper (also in Figure 1).

Conclusion:

OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY shouldn’t be limited to your occupation (as in, your job), but also to “the place that you physically occupy” (as in, your house). You should add paper spikes everywhere that danger lurks!

PROS: Should reduce the rate of kitchen-counter-guillotine incidents at home to pre-French-Revolution numbers.

CONS: If people start to get used to these paper spikes, and think they aren’t dangerous, then they might ACTUALLY fail to notice the danger of real spikes in a Prince of Persia / Squid Games / Indiana Jones / etc. situation.

Originally published 2024-12-16.