Dinner Delivery to Your Door

About 10 years ago my father, aka Pop, and stepmother, Nancy, moved to Charlestown, an excellent senior living facility in Catonsville, MD.  Nancy had Parkinson’s disease, and it was getting harder and harder for her to climb the two flights of stairs in their colonial home. 

Over the next several years I had a chance to watch them and their neighbors to see what would really help them in daily living.

Dinner in one of the nice dining rooms was included in their fees, but sometimes Nancy didn’t want to walk that far. They could have dinner delivered to their apartment for $10, but it took about half an hour, or Pop could walk to pick it up.

Over the years this became a more frequent situation for them. And I thought, what if we had a little vehicle, just the right size to deliver their dinners.  Dinner would arrive when they wanted it, and much more affordably.

My friend David and I invented this solution years before when we were in a hotel preparing for a presentation the next day at a conference. We had a lot to do and didn’t want to take the time to go out for a midnight snack.  So we brainstormed about a pizza-sized vehicle. We even figured out that it could run along the ceiling of the halls, and the elevators, to deliver right into our rooms through a slot above our doors. That way it wouldn’t interfere with anyone, or require a lot of construction.  We were too busy with other things to pursue it, but I still think it’s a useful idea.

Of course small vehicles aren’t new. My favorite is the mouse droid from the original Star Wars movie in 1977.  Fans will remember the scene on the Death Star where Luke and Han are leading Chewbacca to the detention center and a small droid approaches. Chewie growls, the droid squeaks, does a K-turn and races off. The MSE-6 stood about 25 centimeters tall, a perfect size for carrying dinner for two.