I need your help.

To cut a long, long story short, many years ago, I broke my nose saving a bird from a cat. Now, it seems, I need a CPAP machine to help me breathe at night.

The CPAP machine is the invention of the Devil and was initially used to torture horses, or somesuch. Now it’s used to torture me. It is basically a vacuum cleaner. You stick one end of a hose into the orifice that blows and the other end attaches to a mask that covers one’s face. You’d imagine it was hard to sleep with a vacuum cleaner blowing air in your face all night, and you’d be right.

Yet, that is not the worst of it. While the hose blows, the mask sucks – figuratively, I mean. The mask is an ingenious, high-tech marvel of soft and hard plastics, carefully shaped and molded, with intricate folds and tucks, that sits gently against your face and creates a seal so the “positive airflow” from the vacuum cleaner goes up your nose and in your mouth without leaking all over the place. The trouble is that the mask does not work. The mask is a complete and utter failure. It blows air in your eyes and down your cheeks and the only way to stop it doing so is to tighten its straps so hard that it pushes your teeth down your throat. And even that is no good because, as the pressure ramps up – and it does – there comes a point where it lifts itself off your face like a tiny hovercraft and starts flapping its “skirts” all over your head. (You know that thing you do when you put your wet lips on a baby’s belly and blow to make a ripe farting noise and the baby laughs its little head off? Well it does that, only in your face, without the laughter.)

The problem is that, while there are various sizes, designs and manufacturers of masks, none of them fits properly. And, trust me, I’ve tried them all. They are, of course, designed for some kind of generic face, with a generic nose, averagely wide and long, with median cheekbones, plus or minus. But, let’s face it, who on Earth has that face? Not me, for sure!

Which is where you guys come in.

Some of you, I’m sure, are engineering geniuses, knowledgeable about modern materials, gifted ar CAD, proficient with rapid prototyping techniques, and all that jazz. Some of you will also be looking for the next project to sink your teeth into, to raise seed capital for, and to turn into a multi-billion dollar medical appliances corporation. Well, here is that project. All you need to do is invent a system that measures a customer’s face, produces a 3D model, uses that to create or adjust a CPAP mask design so that it fits perfectly, and then prints it off on a 3D printer, so the customer can fill your pockets with gold and take it home with them.

But you’ll have to hurry. I need this, like, tonight!

I give you this idea gratis. All I ask is that I get a perfectly-fitting mask out of it. Of course, if you do turn it into a billion-dollar company, I wouldn’t complain if you slipped me a few percent of the stock.

Meanwhile, I am finding that large quantities of alcohol also work to help you sleep – even if you can’t breathe and your CPAP machine is blowing raspberries in your face all night.