Algernon Q Fuzzbutter
1908 – 2012
Algernon Q Fuzzbutter, the inventor of the oversized mattress label, died on Thursday peacefully in his bed. Fuzzbutter would, his family said in a prepared statement they had prepared earlier, have appreciated the irony of his place of death. “Dad was always in bed, even when he wasn’t confined to it,” said Sarah Munt, his daughter (63), “as far back as I can remember he kinda lived in there.”
“Perhaps,” said Arthur Scofield, a formerly disgruntled employee who has reconsidered his opinion of his former employer in light of his death, “he went there to dream? He certainly dreamed up some kooky ideas we had to implement over the years”. Indeed he did, Fuzzbutter had 73 and a half patents to his name, but not one of the devices, contraptions or aides ever caught on as well as the oversized mattress label.
In an interview with this publication back in 1932 he spoke about the genesis of the idea, “It just occurred to me, the labels they were putting on these mattresses were about the same size as the labels in a shirt, or a pair of bloomers, but the mattress is much larger than these other items, so why not have a label commensurate with the larger size of the object in question?” He also revealed in the interview that he hoped one day to add large labels to cars and even refrigerators, but alas he was unable to live to see his dream become a reality.
Algernon Q Fuzzbutter is survived.
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