Demand for mud on the rise

If a friend told you he had just hatched a plan to market bottled mud that people could use to intentionally soil their SUVs, you might be tempted to suggest he have his medication adjusted.

And that is why you will never be rich.

Whereas others see financial opportunities in exploiting the deep-seated need of many people to throw their money away whenever possible, you see nothing but plain old dirty water and ask why anyone in his right mind would buy such a foolish thing.

Not so Colin Dowse, a country-dwelling Englishman who, in time-honored fashion, recognized the enormous profit potential of underestimating the intelligence of his fellow man. Over a few pints at the pub, where so many great ideas are born, Dowse and his chums got onto the subject of urban SUV owners who feel self-conscious about never taking their rugged, gas-guzzling, 4×4 vehicles anywhere wilder than to the mall or their kids’ soccer games. That’s when Dowse, a financial consultant and Web designer, came up with the idea for a product that would serve, in his words, as “an urban camouflage designed to give the impression that you are a serious off-roader.”

Common mud, in other words, made from his local Shropshire dirt that he mixed with water and a secret ingredient or two that helps the brown goo stick to a vehicle’s finish. He put the stuff in plastic squirt bottles, called it “Spray-On Mud,” created a retail Web site, and then sat back to see if there really were people out there crazy enough to spend $14.50 U.S. for a quart of mud with which to dirty up their vehicles and spare themselves the sneers of eco-conscious neighbors.

He didn’t have to wait long. The Web site was soon besieged with hits – more than 100,000 at last count and climbing steadily – and Dowse told the British press this week that he is barely able to keep up with the demand. The mud is selling from Japan to New York, he said, and has become wildly popular in Germany. Distribution is scheduled to begin in the United States and Canada within a few months.

This unlikely success story, so indicative of a screwball modern culture that promotes the eating of worms as TV entertainment and allows grilled cheese sandwiches to be sold for thousands on eBay, begs the question: Why didn’t you or I or anyone else in our mud-luscious neck of the woods ever get the bright idea of selling it to the masses?

Maine people, after all, wallow in mud in springtime. Mud is legendary here, a commodity so abundant and widespread that we’ve named an entire season after it. We scrape it off our shoes, wash it off our clothes, our children, our dogs and our streets, and grumble about it when it’s so thick and plentiful that our cars bog down in it. Our traditional humorists have been telling stories about Maine mud for generations, and a native musician named Rick Charette has even sung its praises in his children’s song “I Love Mud.”

Yet has any one of us in this state ever stopped to consider, over a few beers with friends perhaps, that there might be people out there in the world who would actually buy bottled Maine mud to disguise their woefully underutilized Utes and assuage their guilt in the process? No, we have not, and now an enterprising Brit has beaten the rest of us to it and will no doubt become a millionaire before his odd venture dries up.

All I can say is, “Here’s mud in your eye, Mr. Dowse.”