I want this to be true
It’s been a tough week here in the Spirit Lounge, what with the state of humanity being such a goddamn clusterfucked trainwreck of horror and all. So when I came across this old Onion article from 2000, my heart leapt with an irrational wild hope. Let it come true, I thought. I’m a Spirit, I’m in the Spirit Lounge, God stops by for tequila shots every now and then — maybe I can talk Her into it!
Dolphins Evolve Opposable Thumbs
‘Oh, Shit,’ Says Humanity
August 30, 2000 | Issue 36•30
One of the evolved dolphins, whose opposable thumbs
have struck fear into the hearts of humankind.
Delphinologists have reported more than 7,000 cases of spontaneous opposable-digit manifestation in the past two weeks alone, with “thumbs” observed on the bottle-nosed dolphin, the Atlantic humpback dolphin, and even the rare Ganges River dolphin.
“It appears to be species-wide,” said dolphin specialist Clifford Brees of the Kewalo Basin Marine Mammal Laboratory, speaking from the shark cage he welded shut around himself late Monday. “And it may be even worse: We haven’t exactly been eager to check for thumbs on other marine mammals belonging to the order of cetaceans, such as the killer whale. Oh, Christ, we’re really in the soup now.”
Of course this wouldn’t actually be evolution, but rather a kind of synchronized mass mutation. But I’m sure God could handle that.
Thus far, all the opposable digits encountered appear to be fully functional, making it possible for dolphins – believed to be capable of faster and more complex cogitation than man – to manipulate objects, fashion tools, and construct rudimentary pulley and lever systems.
“They really seem to be making up for lost time with this thumb thing,” said Dr. Jim Kuczaj, a University of California–San Diego biologist who has studied the seasonal behavior of dolphins for more than 30 years. “Last Friday, a crude seaweed-and-shell abacus washed up on the beach near Hilo, Hawaii. The next day, a far more sophisticated abacus, fashioned from some unknown material and capable of calculating equations involving numbers of up to 16 digits, washed up on the same beach. The day after that, the beach was littered with thousands of what turned out to be coral-silicate and kelp-based biomicrocircuitry.”
See? It could go fast! They could be ready to take over the U.N. by this weekend if God got started tonight!
It is unknown what precipitated the dolphins’ sudden development of opposable thumbs. Some dolphin behaviorists believe that the gentle marine mammal, pushed to the brink by humanity’s reckless pollution and exploitation of the sea, tapped into some previously unmined mental powers to spontaneously generate a thumb-like appendage. However, given that 95 percent of the world’s dolphin experts have committed suicide since learning of the development, the full story may never be known.
“You must believe, sleek ocean masters, that many of us homo sapiens weep with shame and disgust over the degradation to which our species has subjected our All-Mother, the Great World-Sea,” read the suicide note of Dr. Richard Morse, a Brisbane, Australia, delphinologist and regular contributor to Marine Mammal Science. “If you are reading this, I estimate that it is the day we know as August 31, 2000. Please be decent and kind masters to our poor ape-race. Oh, God, I’m so sorry about the tracking collars.”
4 Responses to “I want this to be true”
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deb cheesbrough says:
Well, I have a cat with opposable thumbs, but she refuses to learn to use them. Being a cat, and all…
October 11th, 2007 at 11:04 pm EST -
The Ghost of Violet says:
I was just recounting to my mother some dolphin delightfulness, as in this article:
But then of course I had to reassure my dog Molly that she’s wonderfully smart and playful and creative too! (Molly says: yip!)
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Chris says:
Shit. She’s on to us. I thought everyone had forgotten that damn article by now.
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Chris says:
Oh, no. Did I say that out loud? I am SUCH a stupid blowhole sometimes.
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