Employee of the Month For The 19th Consecutive Time For His Tireless, er, Enthusiasm: Mucus Guy.

In the wake of my cold, I’ve come to the scientific conclusion that the human body is a ridiculous contraption.  Yes, it’s miraculous and all, but there are certain elements that clearly have not gotten the kinks worked out.  I am, of course, thinking of mucus.  I’ve been thinking of it a lot the last week or so.

I’ve had hay fever most of my life and first off, allergies are idiotic (Dear Immune System, We are not under attack.  Knock it off.  How many times do we have to go through this: Pollen and cat hair are not problems; we don’t care about them).  The immune system and allergens have the same relationship as the dog and the postal-carrier.  ‘Hm… I freak out, invader goes away, thus, my freak-out must keep the invader away.  Conclusion: continue and possibly escalate freak-outs.’

Mucus in and of itself, of course, I’m willing to acknowledge the role of.  I understand the necessity and value of mucus, but seriously?  Why and how is the body able to produce that much, that quickly?  For what possible purpose does the body generate mucus so quickly? We’ve all had that cold where basically our breathing consists of inhaling and blowing.  Gasping and hacking.  In moments of rare, eerie calm perhaps you muster the will to wonder where it could possible all be coming from.  Shouldn’t you be severely dehydrated by now?

And, again: why so much?  Was there some point in our evolution when the ability to produce enormous volumes of mucus on demand gave us that edge? Like a defense mechanism?  “Evidence indicates that early man, when attacked, could produce tremendous amounts of snot, causing the predator to get horrified and queasy, thus losing his appetite.  Humans without this ability were quickly picked off.”

Wouldn’t it make a lot – like a lot – more sense to be able to produce, oh, I don’t know, blood very quickly?  There must be literally hundreds of situations in which it could be tremendously beneficial to be able to produce a lot of blood quickly.  But no.  It’s like “Blood Guy” is this artisan; knows how important he is; won’t be rushed.

“Eet will be rhedy, when eet eez rhedy.”

“But… really?  Blood guy?  We could use some blood, like right now.  In fact, just in the time it takes me to say this?  We need some even more.  Really.”

“Who are you to talk to me zees way!?”

But Mucus Guy, he’s this quiet, freaky guy who reads knife magazines, drink black coffee all day and does pushups during his breaks.  “Hey, Mucus Guy, got a cold or something, maybe just a cat hair.  Anyway, you’re up.”

[Crazed look of pure focus] “I’m fucking on it.”

The result?  Blood shortages and people making sounds that I get nauseous just thinking about in their desperate attempt to breathe.