To Jet a Thin Stream (Squirt)

Lyrics

[Intro]

[Verse 1]
Lonnie George Johnson, born October 6, 1949, in Mobile, Alabama.
You stood in that cluttered garage in Atlanta, 1989.
PVC pipes, a soda bottle, duct tape silver and sticky.
The air pump hisses, 65 degrees Fahrenheit, spring evening light fading.
You aimed at the sink, but it hit the mirror instead.
Water arcs in a parabola, trajectory plotted on graph paper later.
Super Soaker prototype, patent filed 1991, number 5,074,437.
A thin stream jets forth, 30 feet per second, if pressurized right.

[Chorus]
Squirt, the verb, to jet a thin stream.
From the nozzle, precise, like ink from a fountain pen.
Or lemon juice misting over iced tea, tart at 80 degrees.
But here, in this garage, it's water warfare born.
Diagram the path: initial velocity, gravity's pull.
Lonnie, you entertained yourself, but flooded the world.

[Verse 2]
Aneka, your daughter, laughed at the bathroom flood.
Unnamed kids in the backyard, soaking shirts at 4 PM.
The smell of sun-warmed plastic, chlorinated hose water.
From heat pump side project to toy empire.
Pinch trigger pump, water as working fluid.
I trace the line on my chalkboard: rise over run.
Sharp hiss, then splatter on hot driveway concrete.
Seventy-four years old now, but that squirt still echoes.

[Bridge]

Not just guns, but lemons squeezed in summer kitchens.
Ink squirting from a Cross fountain pen onto parchment.
The sensation: sticky fingers, metallic odor lingering.
But the gun, Lonnie's gun, that's the origin story.
Small strange fact: duct tape held the first flood.

[Outro]

Squirt, the thin stream that changed play forever.
From Atlanta garage to Point Nemo shores.
I diagram it all, trajectory clear.