My dad had a sonogram of his heart a couple days ago. He’s fine. Interesting to watch, though – the heart is one of those things that is difficult to contemplate, and frightening to think about too much. It’s hard to wrap my head around something so simple, and yet so intricate, but it’s even harder to believe that if you stop and think about its constant beating, constant flexing of a muscle, constant… that it won’t just stop.
You know, you flex your hand over and over for a few minutes and you get tired (and bored), and then you think your heart does that constantly? It doesn’t want, like, a five-minute breather? Wouldn’t that be nice? But then there’s the worry that if you think about it too much, the heart will take you up on it – just a little moment to chill out – and then you got yourself a massive coronary.
The whole human body is pretty staggering to contemplate (insert lewd comment about certain human bodies as compared to others…). Well, any living thing, I guess. So much of it is miraculous. Except for the parts that are ridiculous.
I’ve had this allergy fit going on for about an hour and first off, allergies are idiotic (Hey, Immune System! We’re not under attack! Knock it off! How many times do we have to go through this: Pollen and cat hair are not problems! We don’t care about them!). But second, I understand the necessity and value of mucus, but seriously? Why and how is the body able to produce that much, that quickly? For what possible purpose does the body generate mucus so quickly? We’ve all had that cold where basically our breathing consists of inhaling and blowing. Quickly you wonder, where is it coming from?
And, again: why so much? Was there some point in our evolution when the ability to produce enormous volumes of mucus on demand gave us that edge? Like a defense mechanism? “Evidence indicates that early man, when attacked, could produce tremendous amounts of snot, causing the predator to get horrified and queasy, thus losing his appetite. Humans without this ability, were quickly picked off.”
Wouldn’t it make a lot – like a lot – more sense to be able to produce, oh, I don’t know, blood very quickly? I can think of literally hundreds of situations in which it could be terribly advantageous to be able to produce a lot of blood. But no. It’s like “Blood Guy” is this artisan, knows how important he is, won’t be rushed.
“Eet will be rhedy, when eet eez rhedy.”
“But… really? Blood guy? We could use some blood, like right now. In fact, just in the time it takes me to say this, we need some even more. Really.”
“Who are you to talk to me zees way!?”
But Mucus Guy, he’s this quiet, freaky guy who reads knife magazines, drink black coffee all day and does pushups during his breaks. “Hey, Mucus Guy, got a cold or something, maybe just a cat hair. Anyway, you’re up.”
*Crazed look of pure focus* “I’m fucking on it.”
Perhaps even more impressive is the ability to be self-centered. I started off mentioning my dad getting a sonogram – I mean, it’s not like he got the sonogram at the fair, or was bored, sitting around in an obstetrician’s office or something – then glossed right over that, and spent the bulk of the time on my allergy fit. Wow, right? The miracle of humanity. “Early man was able to survive through an incredible ability to obsess over his own minor problems, while simultaneously ignoring…”
Joel Clements 