Body Parts From Heaven -- What Are You Missing?

Every reader of this blog knows that I am equipped with an enormous well-functioning brain. It's one of the things I'm proudest of, my ability to put my forefinger to my head, make a few clicking noises, and come out with the answer to any problem. My brain's usually a blessing, but sometimes a curse, like if people want problems solved but don't realize I have to live too and therefore don't come across with payment in addition to their expressed appreciation.

Not to belabor the point -- it's hard to be humble -- but God! Am I smart! Sometimes I wish I weren't so smart, because the ignorance I see around me is staggering. It might be that the only redemption for me is to stagger and fall on my head and hurt my brain. Then even though I'd probably still be twice as smart as everyone else, at least we'd be that much closer.

Now, getting to my point, my brain isn't really all my doing. I chose it in Heaven, you know, right before I was conceived. Because that's the way it works. We choose what we're going to take with us in that time. And there's a lot of laziness in Heaven, since there's very few challenges to keep us sharp. So future kids are putting it off, getting prepared, and they show up incomplete.

In Heaven they're saying, "Hurry up, get your body parts: Arms, legs, brains, hearts, kidneys, stomachs, etc., and all the various valves that go the parts, etc.," but these idiots answer back, "Yeah, yeah, get off my ass! I'll do it when I'm good and ready!" Then they doze off, many, unfortunately, just as their parents are finishing up, and the thing is done. And it's too late.

Me, on the other hand, I was ready weeks in advance. In fact, I can remember sitting on a lawn chair outside a storage unit with a gun on my heavenly lap, holding off looters. Being, however, smart enough not to let on the wonderful assembly of parts I had inside. A brain to beat the band, and all the rest. As soon as my parents were in the grips of passion -- I was timing it, having watched all the training movies -- I opened the unit and everything came into me, all in miniature form of course, and I was off.

Then later, a lot later, I'm in school. And there's kids missing an arm, missing a leg, having diabetes, having various heart valves, stints, or they're virtually brain dead. And all I could do was shake my head and wonder what happened. (You temporarily lose memory of what came before.)

I knew this one guy. True story. The guy was nothing but a misshapen head with a spinal column, that's it, and a covering of skin. No heart, no liver, no kidneys, etc. A head and tiny brain, the size of a pea, the spinal column, and a covering of skin. They said the only reason he was alive was sheer cussedness.

And here's the other part of the story, how I knew him so well. Because my growing brain was giving me headaches in my sophomore year, and because this guy was so extremely deformed, he and I were the only boys in the whole class to be excused from an otherwise-mandatory semester of wrestling. We simply sat there in the guidance counselor's office, me thinking vast thoughts and him with his cussedness.