The next appendix

As human beings have evolved, we have ceased to need some of our body parts or they have changed to meet our needs. Our appendix, for example: it probably used to function in some useful way, but has long since become unnecessary and serves no purpose today except to get sick or rupture and make money for the surgeons who remove it, leaving on our bodies (as on mine) a three or four inch scar that reminds us that a useless part of us was removed under general anesthesia. (I was recovering from having my appendix removed on the Millennial celebration. I had a clicker to release morphine into my blood stream on command--though certainly it was gauged to not let me over-medicate--when I looked over to the chair beside my bed and recognized the Bishop of Connecticut sitting there. "Hey, Drew," I said, holding the morphine release clicker toward him, "you want to try some of this....?")

On the other hand, our brains have become bigger and bigger over the past 40,000 years or so as we needed them more and more. (However, given the kind of stupidity I discover daily--Taliban killing health workers trying to give the polio vaccine to young children; Anthony Wiener...well, just Anthony Wiener; the Republican candidate for governor in Virginia believing Yoga leads to Satanism; those who don't believe in climate change; anyone who would vote for Anthony Wiener....stuff like that...we might be better off with smaller brains....)

My prediction of the body's next adjustment is this: one of the hands of human beings will wither away and the fingers will bend inward so a smart phone may be permanently attached to the human body.

I was walking our dog on the canal yesterday and realized that most everyone I passed in either direction was either talking on a smart phone or carrying a smart phone in one of their hands. People who were running didn't have a bottle of water in their hand, they had a smart phone. I even saw one guy riding a bike, holding one of the handle bars with a phone in his hand. Granted, most people my age or older had better things to have in their hands: a bottle of water, a dog leash, a cane....like that....

But well over half the people I passed had a smart phone--not in a pocket or a case attached to their belt--but in their hand.

There could be some positive outcomes. The hand that transformed over generations to hold a smart phone couldn't possibly hold a pistol. Those hands wouldn't be able to make an obscene gesture since the middle finger couldn't straighten up. And a fist to strike a child or woman wouldn't be possible--though I wouldn't want to be hit with a hand holding a smart phone. Plus, it would mean the end to golf...not a bad thing in my mind....

I must admit, I just don't get it. I see people filling their cars with gas holding a smart phone in their hand, people shopping with one hand--reaching for Cheerios while the other hand holds a smart phone, lots of people driving with a smart phone in their hand, people at the YMCA doing a set on a machine and then going to pick up their smart phone to stare at it for several minutes, people in restaurants eating with one hand and having to put down the phone to use their knife....on and on it goes. I saw several people buying movie tickets the other day holding their phone (which was supposed to be turned off but was probably on mute so they could get the email that would forever alter their lives....I even saw some people at a cematery recently while I was interring someone they loved, holding their phones as I talked about ashes-to-ashes and dust-to-dust.

I just don't get. Maybe it's because I have a Dumb Phone that only makes and receives actual phone calls and which I can be 'texted' upon though I never read them and wouldn't know how to reply.

Maybe I'll go out and get Samsung/Android deal just to see if one of my hands starts to cramp up so I can hold it....