Insurance People

When I was ten, I went to the movies a lot. I saw horror movies and monsters and sometimes watched travel trips to the Congo and Egypt and even New York. Those far away people took up lots of space and ran around like crazy. I wondered why so many lived in the world. About a thousand people seemed right, I thought. Then I could get to know everyone and they could all get together and eat a big meal and play football and visit. Just like when I went to grandmom’s and met all those strangers who turned out to be uncles and aunts and gave me candy.

But my teacher asked me what if someone drops a big bomb on your head (This was the 50’s when we hid under our desks on Thursdays when the siren went off at exactly noon for air raid drills). So I got scared and figured we needed those people out in Missouri, Montana and some over in China, too They were our insurance people, just in case the siren goes off for real. Then at least someone gets to stay here and live on earth. After all, we do want some people left around even if they aren’t me.

Last night I turned on the TV and they were showing ten great new ways the world can end. This week’s show has meteors smashing us like they did the dinosaurs. Back when only the birds survived by flying over it all and escaping the meteor mess. But everyone else died. My teacher told me that.

The TV said a meteor, somewhere out there, has our name on it. That’s why we need to think about insurance people again.

They say the rich will hide in caves for hundreds of years and come out and still be in charge, but I bet that they keep on fighting just like the dead dinosaurs did, and no one will make it out alive. Then in a thousand years only the birds will be here. No one else. Not us people, that’s for sure.

We really need those insurance people to make sure somebody stays in charge here on good old earth. Just putting them in Montana and China won’t work this time.

So I say let’s freeze a thousand people clones and hide them way down under the South Pole. I say this because that’s where The Thing lived for a million years. (Remember The Thing monster movie—then you will understand). Even if the meteor smokes the earth like the TV said, it will stay cold down under the ice. The Thing proved that.

In the movie, explorers found The Thing and melted him out. (Then The Thing tried to eat them. He got a couple before they smoked him with atomic grenades.)

Our insurance people clones will need thawing, too. Who will do it is the question? We will be gone—done in by the meteor. We need to find someone who will still be around after things smooth out. I’m betting birds make it thru the next extinction like they did the last one. They will sit it out on some pacific island doing bird things and having a good time.

So what we need is to add some good genetic memories to those birds for melting people out of ice; add some neuronal plans and put them in the bird genome. Neuronal plans like birds already have for bird things like going south in the winter or eating worms for breakfast.

OK, I know this is hard to do, but we pay you genetic engineers a lot of money; so start working on it.

And we don’t want you to fix up just any old birds. Some are pretty stupid and will be there beside us people getting extinct. We’ll need really smart birds to save our insurance clones. I am betting that crows make it thru extinction. We need to program some crow DNA to save us. Fix their little bird brains so whenever they see a frozen human in ice, they sit on it, like one of their little chickies, and thaw us out. That’s the plan. Pretty good, huh?

Then we do a little more genetic work to make crows taste good. I’ll tell you why later.

Now here is the insurance people clone plan in full: (You can make a movie out of it if you want.)

(Scene 1) We are all having fun and doing people things when (Scene 2) WHAAM a meteor smokes us all. But deep beneath Antarctica one thousand frozen insurance people clones are buried.

A couple thousand years later Antarctica warms up and a flock of crows sees our insurance clones thru the ice and BINGO that old genetic memory kicks in. They start sitting on the ice thawing out people and attracting more and more crows. Finally the ice melts, the people wake up and see a feast of good-tasting crows right in front of them. They chow down and the world is saved.

Genetic Engineering does it again.

(OK, you probably guessed. I had a big pizza and saw The Thing rerun last nite. I saw it first when I was 10 and didn’t sleep for months without having my mom lock the bedroom door. It was pretty scary. Like a meteor with my name on it. Or even those old atomic bombs. Actually any good size bombs will do.)