This might be hard to believe, but it really happened. When I lived in Scottsdale Arizona, I was introduced to a man who had invented a battery-operated device that could be attached to a diaper. According to the sheet of instructions written by the inventor, "small electric pulses will vibrate when the diaper gets wet and cause a slight bit of discomfort."

The first thing that came to mind when I read the instructions was the electronic fences that people install around their yards to keep...