kid in glasses wearing a lightbulb helmet

Inspired by the unsettling sights he's taken in while dining out, a Texas teen has created a small device that patrons can take to restaurants to ensure their silverware doesn't come into contact with anything nasty.

Cole Clark created Freakware, a tiny hard plastic device that prevents forks, knives and spoons from coming into contact with questionable restaurant tables, reported KWTX.

Clark said his mother has always put her silverware on a napkin whenever the family would go out to eat because she didn't want it to touch the tables the family could see being cleaned with the same towel.

"In this day and age, with COVID and everything, you never know what's on the table," he told KWTX.

In the past few years, Clark's family helped him file patents for Freakware and even put him in touch with a Texas-based manufacturer. Freakware is finally being sold after three years of hard work.

The high school senior fittingly plans to pursue a degree in mechanical engineering.