Not-so-little Mermaids

Next time you have an idea--any idea, from a new business to a new atonal opera--and someone, anyone, tells you, in so many words that you're crazy and you should thank Allah that you have a day job, and to shut up, and sit down....consider this: Eric Ducharme creates latex mermaid tails for a living. According to Bloomberg Business Week, he makes about seven tails a month, at prices ranging from $500-$700. And since December of 2011, he has crafted tails for celebs like Lady Gaga (only one? I would assume she'd have them in various meat flavors, for f**k's sake!), and those custom tails go for $1,600 to $ 5,000. Yes. Yes, you read that right. Yes, there are carbon-based human life-forms out there spending as much as five thousand American dollars ON A LATEX TAIL so that their girlfriends can swim around topless like some sexy, frolicsome, yeast-infected mermaids. (Meanwhile: I cannot get a small business loan. No, I'm not bitter; why do you ask?) Also: how much fun can you really have with someone wearing a tail? Are there easy-access tails? Admit it: that is a million-dollar idea right there! Note to self.
Anyhoo. Normally, information such as this about people wearing mermaid tails, or that the author of the Twilight series is writing a new series about mermaids (monotone actors of the world rejoice: you shall soon act again!), or that Tobey Maguire is planning a "dark, live-action" Little Mermaid, would make me want to lie down under the covers, with a drink in each fist...but, we can't let the terrorists win. Also, I don't want my cleavage covered in cat hairs so, my grumpy sense of outrage and I shall soldier on.
But here's my point: next time you have an idea which makes you happy, and makes you feel alive and you're brooding about how best to bring this idea to life, and some dead-inside douche says, "It'll never happen, grow up!"...remember this: there is a man in Florida making a very nice living, in the sunshine and beautiful weather, building mermaid tails. Exactly.
Or, as Howard Aiken once said: "Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats."