Cryogenics and Over-achievers

So, some day last week I was watching the early morning shows when my coffee-enriched brain took notice of a bizarre “news” feature. Apparently, a former Alcor employee has written some sordid expose on the vagrancies of cryogenic preservation. I tell you my interest was mightily piqued when he began to explain how they removed a bumble bee tuna can from a baseball legend’s head (tuna can was the uh..high-tech head stabilizer, they tend to wobble a bit without the whole neck/torso set-up to bolster them up). Some years back I worked for a trailer manufacturer. Whenever we encountered a discrepancy between blue print specs and actual dimensions, we took a giant orange rubber mallet, and beat whatever it was till it fit. Well, those dastardly technicians at Alcor (supposedly), taking a page from that book, took a wrench to poor man’s head in order to beat off (hee hee) a tuna can that was scientifically frozen to said head (hey they only missed once, and I’m sure future scientists can spackle out the divot). Of course the outrage!!! Whatever, the man was dead. This does beg the question a bit though. This Ted Williams fella elected to have the whole kit frozen (lord knows why they separated it), but there are others who chose only to have their heads “preserved”. Why just the head, an astute observer might ask. The answer is frighteningly simple: its CHEAPER. I guess if you are looking to save a buck… Okay, I will journey to fantasy land for a bit and presuppose that there will be some miracle of science in the year 3010 that will not only allow for the healing of whatever nastiness killed your ass in the first place, but will also manage to fix the untold damaged of being flushed with anti-freeze and frozen to -320 or however low. So then, its 3010, you awake to a bustling metropolis, ahhh…… but you are a head. With what shall you walk to Starbucks with??? I can only assume that this sordid business of finding a donor body will be outsourced. Can’t you just imagine: hundreds of elderly male WASPy heads wobbling about on the bodies of South East Asian preteens??

In other news, I recently attended my oldest son’s Egyptian project presentation. He is in an amalgamated “gifted class” with fourth and fifth graders (me thinks the fifth graders are getting the short end of the stick here, but hey who am I to judge, eh?). I thought we were running smooth with our painted, carved, fancy-schmancy hieroglyphics tablet, sphinx nose, home-crafted Egyptian garb, and poster board, but ohhh no, twas not the case. There was a boy who had on display a WORKING Egyptian loom. Now bear in mind he is a member of a devout religious sect that eschews nasty time suckers like t.v., music, and the internet, but still a loom?! We have parent-teacher conferences looming on the horizon and I am looking forward to bringing home the class pet over fall break. What’s one more pooping creature?