A couple days ago, some doctors from the Children’s Hospital here in Boston announced that they’ve transplanted the world’s first lab-grown human organ – a bladder – into a kid named Kaitlyne McNamara. Hopefully she’s scheduled for follow-up surgery to repair the mangled spelling of her first name.
Now, like you, my first thought when I heard about this breakthrough was that modern medicine has finally delivered on its promise to improve my quality of life by giving me the jumbo and / or extra parts I need to hold onto a barstool on St. Patrick’s Day.
The way I see it, the bladder’s just the tip of the iceberg; I figure that now that the word’s out that doctors can grow organs, they’ll get a sudden influx of fresh cash from people in the market for novelty organs. I defy you to find me any Camaro-driving guido who wouldn’t pay through the nose for a couple extra testicles (“I brought the blank check, Doc. Nut me up. That’s six for me, and one extra for the hood of the IROC.”).
Personally, I just like the idea of being able to get spare parts on demand. I’m intrigued by the concept that I could treat my liver like a disposable coffee filter. I’m so intrigued by it that it’s how I treat my liver right now. Therefore, being able to get a liver on demand is a lot more attractive an option than, say, dying, or being David Crosby. And compared to cranking one out in front of Melissa Etheridge, dead starts to look pretty fucking good.
If I can get organs on demand, I’m having a zipper surgically implanted in my chest, because fresh pink organs whenever I want them means eternal life. And no more ugly Monday morning hangovers. It’ll be all the ghoulish, disgusting immortality of vampirism with only half the vaguely disturbing homoeroticism! I say half, because if your doctor unzips you to get inside you? That’s a little gay.
And unlike cryogenics, there’s none of the anxiety that you’ll accidentally get thawed out if some MIT undergrad tries to flash-freeze a 40-ounce Crazy Horse Malt Liquor with your ass.
Sure, cryogenics sounds good on paper. You wake up in the future in a young, newly-cloned body with all your money plus compounding interest. However, I just know that I would wake up in a hundred years with fifty million dollars and a perpetual teenager’s hard-on with an adult’s skill in tricking girls into having sex with me… only to find that in 2097, The United Christian States of Jesusland lost the war on morbid obesity.
Besides, it’s not just about the boners and money. I want to see the future happening. Because I believe that if I live long enough, I might see a day when people overcome their narcissistic, destructive instincts, and finally understand that it’s just folly to name your daughter fucking Kaitlyne.
Dude,
If you don’t IMMEDIATELY make and market a t-shirt that says, “Nut Me Up,” I *will* steal this idea.