Have you ever played the game Marco Polo, where you close your eyes and shout, "Marco," and the other people reply, "Polo," until you find them? It's like hide-and-go-seek, but you rely on sound instead of sight. I was always really bad at it since I'm deaf in one ear. I'm also a vegetarian who is short, blind as a bat, and has a Bachelor's Degree in Anthropology with a double minor in Women's Studies and Peace Studies (yes, really).
In other words, I don't have any real "life" skills.
And as shallow as that sounds... and it is... it never bothered me until this month, when I was working on my house, and I had to paint ceilings, wallpaper bathrooms, stain decks, and plant flowers. None of which I knew how to do, and I still don't... unless you want to buy my house, because - in that case - I did an AWESOME job. Besides, who doesn’t want to live next to a guy with crop circles? Because, I promise you, if you buy my place, you will definitely make time to watch the grass grow, even if it isn't your own.
But that’s not the point. The point is that, at the end of last week, after hours upon hours upon more hours of manual labor, I was so exhausted that the only thing I could do was watch TV. And that’s when I became addicted to a show on the Discovery Channel called Dual Survivor. Have you seen it? Two men, one of whom is a complete Naturalist and the other of whom is an ex-Army guy, go into remote terrain with very little supplies and survive on their own merit. While both of them are amazing, one of them - the granola environmentalist - is the MacGyver of fire. I swear, he can make it from used chewing gum that he found in a river. All jokes aside, it's pretty impressive to watch. Because prior to this show, I thought "Lord of the Flame" meant something very different. In fact, I would have told you, "Not only do I know the Lord of the Flame (SA), he's a good a friend of mine, and there is NO way in hell that he's on a mountain or in a desert. He's on his couch watching Glee." And if you had added, "He's in a cave with an ex-Army guy." I'd have said, "What happens in the rain forest, stays in the rain forest, and if you don't want to know then don't ask, don't tell. Personally, I'm already texting him for details."
And that shallow queen would totally provide them... but I digress.
The point is that, after watching this show, I began thinking about human evolution and how the keeper of fire would have been a pretty important person in the village, which made me wonder, "What skills would I have brought to the tribe?" I could not have been a Hunter, because the only thing I'm capable of catching is a cold, and I loathe gardening so there is no way in hell that I could have been a Gatherer. And that's when it dawned on me... I started out a berry picker, but I ended up as dinner.
Yup - I invented cannibalism.
Seriously - just hear me out. This makes total sense. I'm round, I'm slow, and I'm deaf. I'd never have heard you coming. And, at some point, there would have been a shortage of food, so I would have been complaining... again. At which time, someone would have thought to his or herself, "Self, I wish she would shut up, and I'm SO hungry. Hmmmmmm...." At any rate, if I wasn't the justification for cannibalism, then after a miserable day of gathering - I invented expletives and you should thank me for giving you George Carlin, who used them better than anyone else in history and who also once said, "Your village called. They want their idiot back." Who knows, maybe that was my job instead.
Talk to you next week.
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