Apparently the lives of small children and golf clubs are quite threatened by the menacing power of the garage door opener. Sates across the nation have, in the last two decades, imposed regulations forcing households with garage door openers to attach small infrared transmitters on either side of the door in the hope that they will manage to detect objects that people do not want crushed by the heft of their designer doors.

But the infernal infrared boxes have now become my enemy. Today, after taking an AP test and failing to find a good bakery at which to eat lunch, I came home to grab my backpack. That exercise was intended to permit the quick retrieval of my school-related effects so that I could make it to school in time to begin my chemistry lab. Then the garage door would not close.

Despite my repeated attempts to nudge, clean and otherwise realign the infrared receivers on either side of the door, it simply would not acquiesce to my will. I suppose, especially as I do not live in a neighborhood with a high crime rate, I could have left the door open. But given my luck over the past two months, I decided against it.

Unlike some people, however, who would simply expound upon their hatred and leave it at that, I have a solution that would — if implemented — save the annoyed and the threatened in one fell swoop: ultrasonic sensors.

New cars from manufacturers like Audi and Mercedes-Benz use a series of small ultrasonic sensors on the front and rear bumpers to alert inept parkers of their distance between vehicles. Similarly, such sensors could discern the distance between the bottom of a garage door and any objects on the ground. That way, whenever the ultrasonic waves detected something more than two inches high on the ground, the garage door opener would stop.

With said system, nothing requires alignment — so I would have made it to my chemistry class — and children everywhere would still be able to frolic safely in our nation's driveways, at least, without the looming dangers of garage doors.

Now if only I could find someone to manufacture this.