TO:  Dr. xxxxx 
FROM:  The Supreme Being 
DATE  December 4, 1997 
RE:   Requested Changes in the Human Body 
 

Before I begin, let me first state that the human body is ingeniously designed, and I’m sure that no one but myself, the Supreme Being, could have come up with such an amazing, efficient system.  Despite my awe-inspiring creation, it has not escaped my attention that there are many complaints flooding into my Complaints Department daily regarding the human body.  The inhabitants of my wondrous receptacles cry out that they want parts of their form changed; they want some of the functions of the body eliminated altogether; they want some of their organs to work double-time, and others not to work at all.  O.K., taking all their comments into account -- some of them reasonable, some of them preposterous -- I have come up with some alterations for the human body. 

Oh, and I’m sure you’re wondering: “Why has the Supreme Being selected me to be the recipient of the news of these changes?”  Perhaps it is because you, Dr. xxxxxxxxxx, as a doctor and an instructor in the field of human biology, should be abreast of these momentous changes so you can instruct others.  Or perhaps it is because you just happened to have assigned a topic to your Human Systems class that just happened to coincide with my intended changes.  Maybe you even gave me the idea.  Regardless of the reason, we must move on, because even as I dictate this to my translator, she is on her third bag of M & M’s. 
   

The following changes will hereby go into effect as of January 1, 1998:  
 

Changes in the Brain and CNS: 
I have the greatest number of complaints from humans regarding their looks.  They want thinner bodies. I designed the metabolism for survival, and a woman’s hips, thighs and butt for childbirth, and I don’t intend to change either one.  They want to remain young-looking well into old age.  This desire causes them to spend an inordinate amount of time preoccupied with hair, skin, make-up, etc.  Plastic surgery has become a national obsession.  It is especially women who are slaves to this idea of physical beauty, attempting to look like some impossible sixteen-year-old cadaver who’s been air-brushed on the cover of a magazine, and it’s sabotaging their time and energy.  I have therefore come up with a solution that I really believe will contribute to the betterment of mankind:  Beauty/physical attractiveness will only be recognizable to humans in the form of kindness, combined with charm and personality. 

I will swing this by inventing pheromones that attract people of the opposite sex to one another that are secreted when someone is emanating goodness.  Emanating goodness will almost be the same thing as emanating sexuality, animal magnetism.  Of course, that doesn’t mean that church service turns into an orgy; rather, there will be other factors at work as well, such as, I don’t know, the light behind someone’s eyes and all that business.           

Also regarding brain changes, depression and all other mental illness will be an impossibility.  Seratonin, dopamine, etc. will never be in short supply.  Human bodies will produce, on average,  twice as many endorphins as usual just as a matter of course.  If something bad happens where they’re really needed, the sky’s the limit. 

As for pain receptors: they’ll work, but then when someone gets a terminal illness, they’ll shut  down completely. 

About Sex: 
I had originally designed the entire process of human reproduction -- from the enjoyment of sex, to the fact that a woman can become pregnant year-round, etc. -- so that it would be easy for humans to perpetuate the species.  But now  human over-population has become such a terrible problem on Earth -- and getting worse by the day -- that I’m afraid something drastic has to be done. 

Don’t worry, I’m not even considering taking  the joy out of sex; however, I have decided to take the sperm out of sex.  Sometimes.  It will work like this:  A man can produce the usual amount of seminal fluid, but then he will only be able to produce sperm in his seminal fluid once a month for a period of a couple of days.  How will a man and woman ever be able to conceive a child if the woman is not ovulating at the same time the man is producing sperm?  Here’s the beauty of my plan:  Pheromones will be responsible for getting the man’s “cycle” and the woman’s “cycle” in sync.  After the man has been with the same woman for a period of say, three months, his sperm will begin producing at the same time each month that the woman is ovulating.   

O.K., I know this is Out There, but: 
There will be lighter, more hollow bones in humans.  There will be additional appendages on either side of the body emanating from just inside and a little below the shoulder blades.  These appendages will be, in length, equal to the height of the person.  They will measure approximately half the size of the length in their height, with thin, spreading skeletal bones, a thick epidermis, and a dense growth of fine hairs.  They will be foldable at rest, and when in use will enable the individual to, yes, fly.  Think how much FUN!  Er -- I mean -- humans’ ability to fly will solve so many problems. 

Problems such as those of transportation; those of pollution from all the fumes from all the cars, planes, etc.; those of getting away from a really vicious wild boar before it is able to attack you; those of not having to wait for an elevator.  Public molting might be a problem, but what are you gonna do?  Unfaithful spouses could have their wings clipped, as could criminals.  Traveling over water and getting tired?  No problem.  Buoyed rest stops would be available. You get the idea.  But I digress. 
  
The GI Tract:  
Throwing up -- this response will be eliminated altogether.  That goes for nausea, too.  Instead, if a person has swallowed something noxious/bad/poisonous, as an indication of this instead of the nausea, that individual’s stomach will turn fuscia with yellow polka dots, then he’ll/she’ll know there's danger, at which time the other end will take care of getting rid of the bad substance, and the other end will do it in a real hurry, none of this twenty-four hour business. 

There have been many requests to eliminate the GI Tract altogether, and all the somewhat embarrassing and sometimes unpleasant things associated with it. I’m afraid that, in order to do this, I would have to redesign the human body in such a way that it wouldn’t even be recognizable.  There’s really no way around the GI Tract and it’s functions of taking in nutrients, digesting them, and then ridding the body of the wastes.  Nothing I’ve designed would function without it.   

I can, however, make one little change that I’m sure everyone (or at least I would hope that everyone) will appreciate:  there will no longer be a function for the bacteria that reside in the colon and process some of the food we eat into necessary vitamins.  Instead, all vitamin absorption will take place in the small intestine through enzyme secretion.  (Yeah -- that’s it -- the small intestine -- that’s the ticket . . . .)  I will rid the large intestine of the bacteria and by doing so will rid it of the objectionable smell associated with flatulence and defecation.  There, I’ve actually written it.  Defecation.  It’s such a dirty business.    
  
Chocolate Consumption:  
This issue is, by far, one of the most important ones I will address.  There have been countless requests from you people regarding this substance, such as “Please make chocolate calorie and fat-free without changing anything about it, including the fat” or “Please let broccoli and chocolate switch places on the food pyramid” and the like.  If there was a Cocoa Bean Tree in the Garden of Eden instead of an Apple Tree, I don’t think I would have to address any of these issues now because man would still be in Eden because Woman would not want to have shared. 

Well, I’m sorry to have to tell you this but in order to change the way that chocolate affects the human body, I would have to change everything about how food is metabolized, and the whole deal with fats, carbohydrates and proteins and how they are utilized in the body, and it’s a big project, so no dice.  Just enjoy the chocolate.  Besides, my big time change in the brain about humans being attracted to one another based on personality and charm will solve the problem of what chocolate will do to your figure and how that will affect your love life. 

The only exceptions to all these changes will be for those individuals who are evil, violent, intentionally hurt others, etc.  (Not the ones who are mentally ill -- there won’t be any mental illness.)  It will therefore be obvious who is vilely evil and who is not, and it will not be up to man to convict, condemn and punish fellow man.  The evil people will punish themselves.  Someone like Saddam Hussein, for example, might throw-up and be nauseated round-the-clock, until his evil behavior ceases.   There would be an infallible series of valves in the brain that could not be tampered with that would assure this/ cause these reactions.  What are they?  Well, the Supreme Being has to have some secrets left. 

O.K., so what have we got?  Some brain changes, some sex changes, some GI changes, some wings -- I think we’re set for a while.  Let’s see how these do next year, and I may have to make some changes.  The great thing about being the Supreme Being is that I don’t have to test out these things in a controlled setting or get FDA approval or anything like that.  The Earth is pretty much my lab.  Plus, I know what I’m doing.  Plus, I’m not an evil scientist who’s corrupted by greed and a lust for fame.  I just want humans to be happy.  Ten to one, after I enact these changes, they’ll want things back the way they were before. 
 
 

Chocolate, when referred to here, means not the cocoa powder, which is relatively low in fat and is bitter; rather, chocolate here refers to any deliciously fatty, sinfully sugary, rich in bad cholesterol treat, such as a Hershey bar.  Return to Text. 

SB/xx