Why is it some folks have all the great ideas? You know, like hula hoops, pet rocks, bottled water – those sorts of things that cost little or nothing in the way of thought or production, but make the inventors tons of money.

I would dearly love to come up with something clever, patent it, sell the patent for boocoodles of money, and never think about folding laundry or scrubbing a toilet ever again.

But that’s a pipe dream. Won’t happen. I’m about as left-brained as they come.

Years ago during my school teaching days, I taught divergent thinking skills; however, what the kids didn’t know was that I’m really about as creative as a snap bean when it comes to inventive matters. I excel at fill-in-the-blank and true-and-false.

My brain is boxed.

And so it was with extreme envy I listened to a CNN report the other day about a fellow named Jay who is raking in the dough with his new venture called “My Pet Fat.”

Jay has a web site, mypetfat.com, where he sells pouches of “fat replica,” guaranteed to help dieters stick to their diets.

This yellow glutinous-looking stuff is packaged in flimsy plastic bags. Oily but firm, Pet Fat is a nauseating glob of fake glycerides -- and it’s selling like buttered hot-cakes.

So, assuming you don’t leave your lunch on the kitchen floor (losing weight THAT way), how does this nasty “pet” help us poor dieters?

Seems if one holds her Pet Fat in her hand while she stands at the refrigerator and makes food choices, she’s reminded to reach for the celery.

Jay says it’s like having a string around the finger, a conscience jabber with a silent message: “You want to add me to your thighs, honey? Look at me as I wiggle wobble in your very palm. Grimace. Cast not thine eye upon the lemon icebox pie. Think about it.”

Well, as I said, Jay is counting the dollars he’s hauling in from mailing “Pet Fat” all over the world. He gets $14.95 for a one ounce bag, $29.95 for a pound, and $99.95 for five pounds.

The man is a genius, that’s what I’m saying.

Clever people fascinate me, which, I guess, is why I can’t stop ruminating about Jay and his pets.

Lost in thought, I tried to picture Jay’s Pet Fat factory. Not surprising, considering my aversion to cooking, I envisioned a setting not unlike a plain ol’ kitchen.

There’s a cold formica-topped table in the center of a rather cramped space. Stacks of cardboard shipping boxes line the walls. On the counters are Folgers coffee cans filled with goopy stuff. The whole room is sort of surgical suite white, and there’s a huge Styrofoam ice chest full of Zip-loc bags.

See? Not much overhead and a mailbox stuffed with checks, the man has.

I told hubby G-Man he needed to help me figure out something I could invent. He suggested a Ball Baiter that fishes golf balls out of lakes, but I was not inspired.

If I’m going to spend time inventing something, I want it to be a creation that enriches my own life – like an age-defying ointment.

Yellow and oily. That I could mix up in coffee cans in the kitchen and sell in Zip-loc bags. To stupes who’d pay one hundred bucks for five pounds of the stuff. With no more advertising than a web site and a fool columnist who’d alert folks to my incredible goo.

That’s what I’m talking about. I already have the kitchen and the coffee cans.

And I know the fool columnist well.