On/Off (the post in which I inadvertently insult God)

The other day I developed an entire thesis in my head and I’ve now decided to share it with you. Consider yourselves warned, no good will come of this, my mental leaps are far-fetched at best and sacrilegious at worst.

God may (or may not, I’m a borderline agnostic so you are entirely free to substitute God with Evolution in this text) have created us in his image, but he definitely decided to leave us imperfect. Sure, he did a good job with the intricate workings of our all too human bodies, they are perfectly functioning “living machines”, but in my opinion he could have added one more tiny little detail to bring us closer to perfection: an on/off switch.

I’m sure those of you who have children, or have ever been around other people’s children, are enthusiastically nodding in agreement. As far as our offspring are concerned the possibilities are endless:

-       The baby’s crying, he’s been fed, diapered, cuddled, he’s in no apparent pain, it actually looks like he’s just crying to annoy you – so you just switch the crying OFF.

-       You’re in the car, the kids are tired cause they haven’t napped, everybody’s whining and arguing and fighting, you can’t concentrate on the road, this is clearly a case in which the driver’s peace of mind prevails, and you switch everyone in the backseat OFF

-       You’ve had a full day, you’ve played with your kids, engaged with them, fed them, bathed them, it’s nine p.m. and you’re fucking tired and they won’t go to sleep… OFF

It could even benefit your marriage:

-       Your husband wants to have sex, you don’t cause Grey’s Anatomy is on, Dr. Sloan is hot, you’ve had sex in the last fortnight, do I need to say it? (Of course we could also read this scenario from the opposite perspective: you haven’t had sex in a fortnight, you can tivo the damn show….).

Your career:

-       your boss is yapping about something or other, he’s wasting your time, OFF so you can get some work done and get back to facebook already

I could go on and on but you get the drift…

But this is what started me down this thought path to begin with, I was in the car the other day, I was tired cause one kid or another had woken me up approximately fifty thousand times that night, and I was on a two hour drive to spend the day with family, whereas all I really wanted to do was lie in bed and watch TV for a week. Of course I tried to close my eyes and rest my brain for a few minutes on the drive but both of my very chipper offspring were singing (two completely different, and totally discordant songs) and the Husband was pointing out random things in the scenery: Look! A truck! A bird! A castle! A cow! A field! Another cow! And at the apex of chaos, noise and confusion I fervently wished to just be able to switch my brain OFF for the rest of the drive so I could be rested and happy (and, you know, decent company) to these poor people we were visiting who shouldn’t have to endure my bad mood.

So, all I’m saying here really is that attention to detail is very important and it looks to me like Evolution dropped the ball on this one. (Don’t want to directly insult God in writing, as want to avoid the lynching that that would ensue).

So now your turn, in what occasions would you have liked an ON/OFF switch?