What's the most amazing, yet mundane invention of all time?

1. I'd say wheels. They're just round things, but they're fucking everywhere, and make everything work!
   — xanda2260


2. Keys and locks, they've been around for centuries but have become so precise. Imagine trying to mill that shit out by hand; tumblers, springs, cylinders and all that, it's pretty wild.
   — friendweiser


3. Aluminum foil. It's amazing. Malleable sheets of metal impermeable to oxygen, water, light. A million uses for packaging/preservation, insulation, cooking, crazyperson hat-making.
   — e_lime_pie






4. The flush lavatory. Almost flawless. Doesn't require electricity. Think of what the world was like beforehand, the halls of Versailles stank to high hell because the noble folk of France would squat down for a cheeky shit in a corner. Yet essentially everyone reading this has an infinitely better solution in their own homes. Amazing.
   — XyloArch


5. Refrigerator. I mean, no one gets excited about refrigeration these days, so it's mundane in that respect. But what it does is pretty awesome.
   — somepeoplewait


6. That little tab under the rear-view mirror that toggles between night-mode and day-mode.
   — Explain_like_Im_Civ5






7. So my dad is a chemist, and he says Fabreeze is one of the most sophisticated commercial chemicals. If you get him drunk enough, which isn’t hard, he’ll talk about Fabreeze for like hours. It’s very endearing and aparently Fabreeze is the shit.
   — spiderlegged


8. indoor plumbing.
   — ilovearnoldpalmers


9. Eye glasses!
   — datnetcoder






10. Zero.
    — zenspeed