I was driving to work the other day, when I heard an ad on the radio. It went like this:
“The state of Michigan has revised the crossbow laws. Need an advantage over a deer? Come to Mega Killer* Archery on Fifty-Four Street and get a crossbow just in time for the season.”
I started laughing right off. It was a Monday morning, there was traffic backed up all through the city because of the road construction, and I was on my way to an awkward job where I’d just put in my two-weeks notice only a few weeks after starting. And still, sitting there in the car, I started laughing.
Do you need an advantage over a deer? An advantage? Here’s your advantage:
YOU’RE A HUMAN BEING.
You have a developed brain. You can communicate at a high level with others of your kind. You have the ability to think and plan and not simply react. You have opposable thumbs. You built the pyramids and landed on the moon.
You invented the Dollar Menu!
Now, of course, what they meant wasn’t that men and women needed an advantage, but that they needed another advantage. A further advantage. That maybe being able to build a small wooden hut where one could sit in warmth even during the winter, drinking Milwaukee’s Best and watching television and maybe taking a nap - maybe having a better day of it than if one had stayed at home, where one would have been shoveling the walk and helping to ‘tidy up’ - wasn’t enough.
Then I thought: is that what they meant? Or, maybe, did they mean that we didn’t have an advantage after all? That we weren’t smarter, as I’d always believed, and that we couldn’t use those opposable thumbs as well as I’d always assumed. Then I thought of the woman who spilled her coffee and sued McDonalds, and I knew it.
I had to find out, for sure, so I turned to Google. This is what it gave me:
Presenting: http://www.newsoftheweird.com/archive/index.html
And there I had it. First on the page was a story about people spending one hundred and twenty dollars a month for a prescription medicine to thicken eyelashes. What did that guy say at his class reunion, the guy who invented it? “Why yes, I’ve been busy. You know about Rogaine? That’s just the beginning. Wait ‘til you hear what I’ve been doing.” Or, possibly: “Well, see, I was trying to invent a new brand of cattle steroids, and I decided what the hell, I’ll take one. Yeah, just like that. Popped it in some yogurt and drank the thing down. Hands on research, I call it. Didn’t work on the muscles, but man was the hair a success. What was that? Where did you go? I can’t see through these massive eyelashes. Yes, yes, I know I look like Slash. Yes, I’ll sign an autograph.”
Or, further down the page, a man having sex with his car.
Yes, you read that correctly. Here, I’ll write it again:
Or, further down the page, a man having sex with his car.
Now, this one doesn’t need much explaining. But all I’ll say is he must have been bored. Really bored. I mean, I’d do about 10,704 things before I’d have sex with my car. I’d mow the lawn, I’d sweep the basement, and I’d even wade into the kitchen and get some of those dishes, if not clean, at least into the sink. I’d do things that bored me to tears. I’d do things I hated. I’d do anything at all, first, because I don’t think I could ever be so bored that I couldn’t find something that outranked starting an intimate relationship with my Dodge Caravan.
Heck, I’d watch the WNBA before I’d have sex with my car.
But, you know, some people are just looking to get a little better gas mileage. All I’m saying is, you never know. You never know.
The point is I’m no longer convinced we have the advantage. I’m no longer convinced that Man rules this planet. The only thing I’m convinced of is that natural selection must be the biggest farce of all time, because we would have died out back about the time Tim and Debby Caveman first ventured out of the forest and Tim decided to have sex with the wheel he’d just invented.
*(name changed just in case it would be illegal to use it and I’d be sued and/or tarred and feathered and/or forced to watch all of the Detroit Lions’ football games.)
BYLINE:
Jonathan Schlosser is a writer and part-time library worker. He has published some short fiction and is working on finding a publisher for his novel. He has a B.A. in Writing, which means that, for a living, he is allowed to put away books at the library. He is also allowed to tell parents to tell their children to be quiet. He lives in Grand Rapids, MI. Email Jonathan at jonathan@zoiksonline.com.
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