I made this.

Friday, October 22, 2010

My Affliction

I know, I know. The title sounds very dark. Don't not read this simply because you have apprehensions about the title (or the author).

What I actually want to talk about today is mutations. The truth is, I have one. Now, it would just so happen that I did not get one of the cool mutations--I can't fly, my body does not spontaneously regenerate itself when I get wounded (well, it does, but it takes the usual amount of time that it takes any reasonably healthy, non-hemophiliac human being) and I can't control electrical currents. Even my Hulk powers are limited. No, I got color blindness. I would argue that it is cooler than male-pattern baldness, but not by much. Yes, I am color blind. And not necessarily in the socially-conscious, everyone is equal way. Google Health (I know! I had no idea such an entity existed either!) describes it as such: "Color blindness is the inability to see certain colors in the usual way." Which I think is slightly narrow-minded. After all, what comprises usual? Not too long ago I saw a documentary about a woman who married the Eiffel Tower. Ok, so that is unusual and off-topic, but how else was I going to let everybody know?

I have met quite a few people that were excited by the fact that I am color blind. I don't really see the appeal, though. I mean, I can't use my special power to fight crime, and as far as I know, they won't even let me be a fighter jet pilot. I'm not like the kid from Little Miss Sunshine who dreamt of being a fighter pilot, but even if I wanted to unleash hot death from the red skies, the knowledge that I CAN'T, well that is hard to take. (Fighter jet pilot can be added to the list of things I will never be. Also on the list? Physicist, keeper of The Orb and bear. All mystical endeavors, to be certain.) However, the novelty of my color blindness usually wears off pretty quick once (I assume) others figure out I can't get special discounts at restaurants or cure people with a gesture. Perhaps the original draw is just that color blindness makes an individual unique. Only 1 of every 10 men have this mutation (Google Health calls it a "Genetic Problem." I say, hey, take it easy, Google.) and even fewer women are color blind.

Now recently I saw a headline that said, if my memory serves, "Color Blindness Cure Found In Monkeys." At first, I was excited. Finally, right? Then reality struck me . . . how am I going to get a hold of a monkey to cure my poor eyeballs? I'm pretty sure it is illegal to own a monkey in California, even for medical use (or is that just ferrets?), and once I have the monkey, then what? Do I eat the monkey? Do I need to somehow inject it into my body? If so, must it go into my eyes? I don't think I can fit a whole monkey into my eyes. . . . Perhaps I must absorb the monkey? If so, it sounds like I will have to acquire a special machine to make that possible. Can I buy a machine? What will the shipping costs be? How much room will it take in my dorm room? You see my concerns now. Of course, after reading even the first several words of the article, I understood that the monkeys themselves did not hold the cure to color blindness (though I think we can all agree that they have many other answers in store for us), but that people had simply been experimenting on monkeys with color blindness. The point is, there is hope for those of us who dress funny or have never really experienced the color purple (at least not in the way Prince intended; come to think of it, I'm not sure if anyone has ever experienced the color purple the same as Prince has).

"I'm gonna wait 'til the midnight hour. . . ."
-Wilson Pickett, who was evidently unaware of my uncle's maxim that "nothing good happens after 11 o'clock."

No comments:

Post a Comment