The Pap Tap: Amalgamated Travel Rods to Move to Fecund Gulch

Those of you who enjoy a post-prandial stroll before evening curfew might be surprised to see a new form of transportation making ‘inroads’ into Fecund Gulch’s traditional ‘San Francisco-style' trolleys and personal subway cars; I’m talking of course about the travel rod, a fiendishly clever device that combines the comfort of a metal harness with the ease and practicality of a rigid metal rod. It might be even more surprising to learn that the technology isn’t technically ‘new’ at all, and was in fact originally developed to allow President Roosevelt to glower at Hitler from full standing height. Said Roosevelt, “My only regret is that as a child I chose to contract Polio. If only there was a way to go back and warn myself not to do that, perhaps some kind of Time-Travel Rod?" This endorsement ran in Travel Rod aficionado for nearly two years before someone finally read it and had it cut.

The Travel Rod works by fitting steel harnesses to the waists of two willing participants and then connecting the two harnesses with an adjustable steel rod. One of the participants now continues his stroll while the other hovers inches above the ground, free to admire the view or even get in a quick 40 winks.

Amalgamated Travel Rods, the distributor, manufacturer and patent holder on all Travel Rod technology, was nearly dissolved several times, first in the 40s when the primary factory was stolen by Jazz enthusiasts looking for an easy ‘score’ and then again in the 60s when activists destroyed thousands of rods in a huge bonfire in order to make a point about ideas.

Cultural archivists and locomotion hobbyists kept the company alive during the lean years, and now ATR is hoping to transplant its center of operations to Fecund Gulch due to the ‘free sugar cookies for captains of industry’ tray at the Crust-Trench Grocery Co-Op, and secondarily, because of the town's complete absence of environmental restrictions ever since The Gulch was de-municipalized during the cold war.

Following a groundbreaking ceremony next week, construction will begin in earnest on the ATR HQ, which will be situated conveniently between the Farrakhan Living Memorial Carwash and the inexplicable pool of lava that grows a little bit every year but which will probably stop soon.