Population Explosion (Figurative and Literal)

We humans have done well recently in preserving endangered animals and plants in order to save them from extinction. We’ve also done pretty well at thinning out a species that overpopulates. We’re keeping the balance. I’m not sure who gave that job to us. Perhaps it was the same person who gave America the job of policing the entire world.

Perhaps it’s guilt for the other 9,000 species that we wiped out over the years.

Fortunately, we humans are too smart and too powerful for any other species, plant or animal, to overtake us. The plague? A joke. AIDS? Nice try. Swine flu? Come on, you’re boring me. The super volcano beneath Yellowstone? Wait, that hasn’t happened yet. Nor has the enslavement of our race by the man-squids of Thorak. But I’m sure we’ll overcome both as if they were a common cold.

“An alien race wiped out a town of people, you say? Dear God, what a tragedy! Let’s go help them out! Actually, we’ll be there tomorrow. We have to exterminate a colony of bees in our shed this afternoon.”

I’d say that we humans are the biggest problem of all. I’d say that we wouldn’t have to do much saving if we did more preventing. However, I know I’d be approached by one of my fellow Arizonans who would respond with something like, “If we ain’t supposed to overpopulate then that’s the earth’s problem to solve.”

And that might be true. It is, after all, a well known scientific fact that large-scale volcanism and meteors destroyed the dinosaurs moments after they started having dozens of children and applying for food stamps.

But why let it come to that? Shouldn’t we champion the idea that we’re intelligent enough to know better? If I didn’t keep the balance of keeping my room and dishes clean, I knew I’d get smacked. And you know something? I didn’t want to get smacked. And I really don’t want to be crushed by a meteor or blown into bits by a super volcano.

Cell Your Soul

I was in a training class a few weeks ago when a woman's cell phone goes off. She picks it up while the instructor is still talking to the class. "Hello?" she says. "I... I can't talk right now. No, I can't talk right... clothes? No, just throw them in the dryer. The dryer. The dry... listen, I can't talk right now. Yes, she called and said she had a recital tomorrow. A recital. Recital. Look, I can't talk right now. I'm in a training class. I'll talk to you... a ham? Sure, I can pick one up. Avatar? Yes, I loved it! Wouldn't you love to live in a world with floating islands like that? Holy shit, I know! James Cameron is a fucking genius! Hey, I'm in a training class, I can't talk right now."

The person who picks up a phone just to say 'I can't talk right now' ranks number two on my list of annoying cell phone habits. Number one is the person who lets 'Poker Face' play through the entire chorus at 3,000 decibels while they grab the phone out of their purse, examine the incoming phone number like they're deciphering hieroglyphics, tell the people at their table that it's Heather, and put it back in their purse without ever hitting the extremely easy-to-find silence button.

I do, however, believe that someday soon people will stop doing things like texting while they’re confessing to their priest, checking their Facebook status while driving through a school zone, or having a conversation on their phone about stock trades while checking out at Food City. It's just that I think that day will have to begin with a meteor crashing into the earth.

"Can you hear me? I'm getting really shitty reception next to this crater... Hello? Look, I can't talk right now..."