Clones in movies and TV are always crazy and possessed. Remember when Captain Kirk’s clone tried to kill off the Enterprise? And who could figure out The Matrix? They had clones too, and they were all up to no good. Then there was Attack of the Clones, the worst Star Wars movie ever. The Boys from Brazil was another one. Its plotline revolved around a diabolical scientist (Gregory Peck) who was intent on cloning Baby Hitler and bringing back the Third Reich.
Some might argue God was the first mad scientist. That’s because identical twins are clones. I’m a twin, and I’m harmless. Most twins don’t remember the day they cloned, but I do. It was a Saturday night in December, 1951. My parents had turned in early. One thing led to another as they often do, and suddenly, there I was, an official fertilized egg. It was a lonely feeling. This is probably how Neil Diamond felt when he wrote the introspective, yet incomprehensive, lyric for the hit song I am … I said.
“I am”… I said
To no one there
And no one heard at all
Not even the chair
Excuse me while I run out and buy some medical marijuana so I can figure this one out. What does Neil Diamond mean when he sings “Not even the chair?” It’s like he was practicing his new song and forgot the last word. He spotted a chair, so he sang “chair.” Good thing he wasn’t in the woods and saw a bear, or was changing a tire using a spare, or was reading Voltaire.
Anyway, I was now a solitary fertilized egg, just like Neil Diamond was, waiting to grow up, do well in school, meet an XY and have kids. Then, without warning, I split in two. I (or we) had cloned. This left me with a vexing question: was I a clone of my brother, or was he a clone of me? Later on, we left the friendly confines of our mother’s womb. He was named Jack and I was named Jerry. But what if shortly after birth they accidentally mixed us up, and I’m actually Jack, and he’s Jerry? Think of the paperwork necessary to straighten things out. Why, we’d have to switch wives.
Ethicists claim cloning is immoral. But doesn’t it already exist in nature, such as with the Howell twins and when you buy eggs at the supermarket and one has two yokes? Yes, clones are already among us and we plan to take over the world. ..I mean….uhh….we want to contribute to the world’s well-being. I’m not saying some twins can’t be evil. Consider the lurid double lives of the interminably perky Doublemint Twins. Or the mono-zygotic Eenie and Meenie, whose racist rhyme was popular before Rock, Paper, Scissors. Should they be able to besmirch the good clones of the world, such as my twin brother and me, whose only crime has been to torture humanity with pointless essays? Should we be glopped together with Baby Hitler? I say no. I say society should legalize cloning, and this would include digging up dead people, as long as they were good.
After all, the Lions could use another Bobby Layne.