Life, As We Knew It, Has Jumped The Shark

My ignorance is substantial. I once lost the grand prize on a radio show phone-in trivia contest when, after answering three or four pretty esoteric questions correctly, I was stumped on the final one: Why was the number six afraid of the number seven? Because, apparently (as I was mocked by a few dozen people who of course did not know the answers to the several questions I did answer), "seven eight (ate, get it?) nine." Despite being of prime age (about 12 or 13) to totally be blown away by its amazingness, I did not at the time, nor have I ever in 35+ years since, see the movie Jaws. To my credit, I believe, I stopped watching Happy Days around the time they totally abandoned the character of Richie's basketball-playing older brother, Chuck, I believe, and when Fonzie switched from wearing that modest jacket and donned the leather. Therefore, I never did see the episode when said Fonzie on his motorcycle jumped the shark, so when that phrase became popular for meaning the moment when something loses all touch with reality, I was hopelessly clueless as to what it meant and why it meant it.

And so, with my ignorance bona fides well established, I can honestly say I have absolutely no idea who Coco is nor do I care--care not who she is or that I don't know who she is. Having thus proven my total disinterest regarding the subject, then, I feel I am qualified to say that after seeing this headline on the internet ("Coco Gets An Ultrasound Of Her Ass To Prove It's Real") and seeing both the accompanying photos and video from what I assumed was an innocuous but somewhat helpful in a public servicey way TV show The Doctors, life as we once knew it has indeed lost all touch with reality. Even if I weren't blowing my nose two times every sentence at the moment and waiting on a NyQuil bath to take me and my cold away for eight hours, I think rather than dissect this absurd cultural moment with the all the intellectual rigor and run-on sentences you faithful readers have come to know and love, I would simply end this post right now and invite you all to ponder the heft of that headline and what it means for all of us in this obvious-by-now charade we once called so dearly Life on Earth. This very real ass is going to retire for the evening and mourn what up until now had been a pretty decent existence for humanity. NyQuil all around for my friends; Coco for everybody else.

(And yet, I can't quite stop myself, the theology of it all astounds me. God is and always has been all-knowing and all-seeing, I believe. So even when His beloved creations Adam and Eve had not even developed a hunger, had not even begun to scratch at their fig leaves, even as succeeding generations--and millennia--came and went and struggled to come up with the ideas and executions of such things as the wheel, language, movable type, and electric garage door openers--before during and after all of this grand human history--God knew that one day millions of his creations would read [and, minus one, at least, be interested in it] the headline "Coco Gets An Ultrasound Of Her Ass To Prove It's Real" and still He loved us and continued to shed His grace on us. Awe-inspiring. God is merciful. Amen and good night.)

Check out the insane video here.