Happy Thoughts

There are lakes that no human being has ever swam in; there are lakes no human has seen. Where no fish has been hooked, and where no bird has been trapped. It could be peaceful, or muddy and full of crocodiles: we’ll never know. Think of that lake.

Humanity, according to the scientists, has existed in its present form for 200,000 years, and we just invented stairs. Imagine how happy that guy was when he invented stairs. And you know that when he got to the top of the stairs, he had the idea that led to the invention of second floors. That makes me happy.

Many things have made a comeback, but the Macarena has not.

The odds of being crucified are lower now than they have been for many years. Statistically, no one reading this will be crucified.

I have told you this before, but it makes me smile; I’ll tell you again. In South Florida, we have these things called green iguanas. They look like this:

They’re not supposed not be here, but neither are Jews or Cubans; it’s an invasive species. People bought them as pets, dumped them, and now there’s a sizable breeding population from Lake Okeechobee all the way down to the Keys. Wikipedia says they range from 12″-18″ and weigh 10 pounds, but Wikipedia is full of shit: these suckers get up to four feet and 35 pounds of solid muscle. When they’re small, cats eat them, but they don’t have too many predators at full-size besides cars, gators, and pythons. (The pythons are also an invasive species. Welcome to South Florida, where no one belongs.)

Green iguanas are versatile and mobile: they can swim, and run, and–check out those claws–they can climb trees; they climb a tree every night, in fact, for protection while they sleep. Here’s the thing about the iguana’s physiology: where human muscles relax when the body is asleep, an iguana’s muscles retract and lock into place so it can hold on to the tree. This is irrelevant to pedestrians 363-or-4 days a year.

HOWEVER, on one or two nights a year, the temperature drops low enough to send these cold-blooded reptiles into a temporary coma. They freeze there on the tree branch, rigid with sloth, and it takes until mid-morning for them to warm up, and when they do their muscles relax.

Which causes them to dive-bomb onto people walking under the tree, shattering collarbones and terrifying everyone on the sidewalk. For an added bonus, the panicked iguana generally starts flailing its sharp tail around, slicing open several shins.

It’s a good fucking time, man.

Maybe everything’s not terrible. Give it some thought.