A throwback to a time when every object had a makeshift hard reset button.
Inspired by the following facebook status (Sam Bowman):
There needs to be an inherently supported programming feature called the "smack it" function. This would be something that has the same standing as a "toString" function, but is the equivalent of smacking an off kilter mechanical or electrical device. It would reset all variables local to an object, and then set the object to it's original initialized state.
This is part of my collection of ruby hacks that should never, ever be used in production code (except maybe on April 1st). Check out Oops-rb, my ruby fuzzy method calling monkey patch.