Boomwhacker

Sometimes I think I live on another planet.

How is it, for example, that yesterday, in Tara Bahrampour's Washington Post story, was the first I've ever heard of the Boomwhacker?

Boomwhackers are colorful plastic tubes ranging from eight inches to four feet in length.

They come in seven colors, each corresponding to a note on the do–re–mi major scale.

Kids love 'em.

So much so that Whacky Music, Inc., the Arizona–based company that makes them, has sold about 425,000 sets at $25 a set since 1998 when they were first offered.

In the past year about 100,000 sets were sold, half in the U.S. and half abroad.

The Boomwhacker's inventor, Craig Ramsell, estimates that tens of thousands of U.S. schools use them.

Ramsell invented them by accident.

Back in 1994 he was at home, breaking down cardboard wrapping paper tubes for recycling, when he noticed that different lengths of tube resonated at different pitches when he banged them.

He told the Post reporter, "I went across the street to my neighbor and said, 'Hey Pat, I've got an idea for a musical instrument.' She just rolled her eyes."

Undeterred, Ramsell bought some plastic tubing and a tuner and four years later began selling sets of the tubes.

The rest is history.

Maybe I do need to get out more.

Or perhaps I should simply get myself some Boomwhackers and bang away whenever the urge strikes.

$19.95 a set here.