Toilet Humor

Or ill humor, as the case may be.

An Argument Against Intelligent Design
(subtitled: My Whine About My Body Breaking Down)

The other day I was suffering from certain intestinal issues, and realized that if I ever inherit godlike powers and have to create a world (and its flora and fauna) from scratch, one of my priorities will be to ensure that my creations have no need to generate (and thus eliminate) waste.

After all, I’m generating an entire world. Every atom, each iota, I have control over. Presumably, with godlike power, I possess godlike knowledge–yet even without it’s simple to conclude that a properly designed human would convert everything it devours into energy and/or mass.  By definition, waste is inefficient. It’s also annoying.  Whatever purpose urine and manure serve (fertilizer, nesting components, writing your name in the snow) could easily be replaced or eliminated.

Consider life without an excretory system. We eat, we drink, and voila, our worries are over.  If it’s poisonous, we can still regurgitate it.  Even then, it seems little trouble to simply….. make everything not poisonous. Like a god’s little way of just saying "ah, don’t worry about it", which is much more preferable than saying, "Oh, you die if you eat those pretty berries? My bad." 

It’d make long car trips so much more tolerable. It’d make those extra-long shifts at work so much more bearable. If you were ill, you could just lay in bed and heal instead of having to drag yourself to the toilet EVERY THIRTY GODDAMN MINUTES.

Ahem. Sorry about that.

Seriously, though. It’s not like having to shit grants us wisdom, or higher intelligence. It doesn’t teach us valuable moral lessons, encourage societal contribution and growth, or propagate the species. There is absolutely no reason for us to have been designed with the need to excrete except one:

Sadism.

I can deal with mortality. I can deal with a body that has bones that break, that needs tending like a machine. I accept that we need to be finely tuned and conscious of good health, even if I have problems putting it into action at times.  My computer doesn’t need to use the water closet randomly throughout the night. I’m pretty thankful for that.

Sigh.

Over the last few years, I feel like my body is either 1) falling apart, or 2) rebelling against me.  Perhaps because of it, I’m becoming increasingly aware of its imperfections. I take a lot of responsibility for it, because three years of essentially sitting on my ass took its toll.  I spent most of my life in fairly good shape naturally; with a high metabolism, it’s easy to burn off calories and stay somewhat fit. I was usually involved in sports of the intramural/recreational variety.  Before I worked at the library though, I definitely had grown a Belly ™ due to the combination of age and inactivity that plagues males.

It’s trademarked because seriously, he’s his own entity at this point, and he demands recognition. And, he’s pretty bitchy.

I’m really only about 20 pounds overweight, if that. Working at the library has been very good for me, as I tend to be active nonstop, lifting and carrying and pushing and walking (oh lord, the walking).  I’ve always had a nice shape (If I do say so myself. No, really, people tell me this.)  One thing I’m looking forward to once I move out is working out again and getting rid of Belly(tm), which won’t necessarily please him. Thankfully, he can’t read, though he responds amazingly well to visual and olfactory input.

Still, if you take a laundry list, things look mighty grim on The Wrong Side of Thirty.

Proof I’m falling apart:

Head: Random migraines, especially on Wednesday afternoons, for lord knows what reason

Hair: I’ll have a combover someday, I miss the hair of my youth.

Eyes: Glasses for life, though I tried contacts for awhile out of vanity, but my eyes got too dry. It was a combination of too much computer usage (was my job at the time) and the fact I used to sleep with one eye cracked open so it always was too dry in the morning for contacts (something which seems to have stopped, I randomly just realize)

Nose: Been having a problem with severe congestion at night when I lay down, meaning I wake up and can’t breathe, and have to walk around downstairs until it clears, making for poor sleep and poor mood. I made the mistake of trying nasal spray to mitigate it, and it just got worse, because nasal spray addiction/rebound effect is ridiculous. Don’t use non-saline nasal sprays,  kids. It’s just not worth it.  I had to resort to chain-popping Sudafed over a 3-week span in order to break that shit.

Lips: Random canker sores. (Though I’ve never gotten a cold sore, interestingly.  That’s a positive.)

Wrists: Synovitis, which means if my wrists are subject to strain, heavy usage, or intense vibration (such as a lawnmower, or the St. Louis Metrolink), my grip becomes weak as a child’s and my wrist says, "Ow, quit it" repeatedly for hours.  Thankfully, I’ve learned to mitigate it.

Back: Chronically sore in the area I strained it like 12 years ago. Ok, that’s a cheesy one, everyone’s neck and back is sore, because most of us have horrible posture. If you don’t, congratulate yourself. I don’t know how you do it. Sitting properly hurts.

Stomach: About two years ago I developed a strong dietary intolerance to dairy, somewhat to citris.  This is bad because I Love cheese, chocolate milk, and ice cream–and while I can have cheese in moderation, I can have the other two pretty much not at all. It took me a year to learn how to adjust my diet when this oh-so-pleasant surprise hit me out of the blue. I miss pizza, too. I used to eat it regularly. Now, I have to prepare myself a day or two in advance for it, and even then sometimes it still hurts and I wake up at 3am feeling like Lemmywinks is gnawing his way out of my intestine.

Left knee/hip: I have no idea why this area’s started hurting. Maybe I’m sleeping on it peculiarly, but it’s been giving me fits since I started working and being on it so much.

Now, I’m only 34, so theoretically I should be able to look forward to all of this for at least the amount of time I’ve lived to this point.

I seriously need us to develop cybernetics, or magical healing nanotechnology, or tissue regeneration technology, or something.

Intelligent design, my ass. I’m like one of those cheap televisions or cell phones that look just fine on the inside, but are full of crap that doesn’t work properly, so that two weeks later you’re shaking it going, "Work, damn you! WORK!"

Yes. I full admit it. Sometimes, I just write to bitch. We all deserve a little self-pity now and again.