Humor: Drooping and Sagging

The scariest movie I ever saw was, “The Attack of the Body Snatchers”. Nasty aliens planted giant seed pods all over the place and inside each pod grew a human body that was an exact replica of a real person. Once the pod body was fully grown, it took over the person it duplicated. Ok, maybe you don’t think it’s all that scary, but it still gives me the jitters.

And, just like in the movies, my worst nightmare has come true. The other day I was having trouble with the ear pieces on my glasses (these are called the “temples”, by the way – I looked it up). No matter how carefully I straightened them, my glasses were crooked – tipped to the right. Finally, I went into the bathroom to see if I was imagining the crookedness. I looked in the mirror and there was the root cause, plain as day. My right ear was quite a bit lower than my left ear.

Now, that ear has been on my head for 65 years, on the right, behind my sideburn, and beneath my hair. I’m pretty sure I would have noticed by now if it had always been out of place. I’m positive it has consistently been situated at the same elevation as my left ear. Yet, there it was, a full half inch low. There can only be one explanation: the pod body that replaced me was slightly defective.

In the movie, the replacement pod people were kind of numb and robotic, but my mind seems not to have been affected. I still have the same keen razor-sharp mind that remembers every detail except why to hell I came into this room. Just goes to show you that Hollywood doesn’t always get it right.

My wife doesn’t buy the pod thing. She thinks my ear is just sagging a little faster than the rest of my body, and the other ear will likely soon catch up. Now, I find that thought more than a little disconcerting. If things don’t droop symmetrically, all sorts of problems could develop: shirts with one long and one short sleeve; pants with one high water leg and the other dragging on the floor; bow legs that look like a figure 8; eyebrows that look like one caterpillar is farther up the tree; and, a potbelly that looks like a dumbbell with too many weights on one side. My God, what if the droops were on random sides. I’ll end up looking like Disney’s Goofy (or is it Pluto - I always get those characters mixed up).

This is all too much to contemplate. I’m going with the pod thing. Now that I think about it, this new pod body never smoked or drank or otherwise abused itself. I’ve got a whole new body to dissipate, and now I’m experienced. I’ll get it done in no time.