My Top Ten Previous Lives and Other Nonsense
I’ve noticed when people talk about reincarnation or previous lives, they’ve always been someone famous or influential or important. They’ve always been Napoleon or George Washington or the guy who invented the ShamWow.
Why is it that no one has ever been a banana slug or Igor the twelfth century serf who mucked out stables, and was crushed by a runaway manure cart?
After much deliberation I’ve come up with my top ten previous lives:
TEN
Big stupid dinosaur–Jurassic Period.
NINE
Small clever dinosaur, eaten by a big stupid dinosaur–Jurassic Period.
EIGHT
Big stupid dodo bird that jumped from a cliff in a fruitless attempt to fly–whenever the hell we lived.
SEVEN
Mayan who first met Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba, and thought to himself: these Spaniards seem nice, I’ll introduce them to my people, nothing bad could come from that–sixteenth century, near the time of the fall of the Mayan Empire.
SIX
Wendall Newton, Sir Isaac Newton’s stupid cousin who laughed when the apple fell on Isaac’s head. Later he ate the apple and choked, it had a worm in it–seventeenth century.
FIVE
Pierre, Marie Antoinette’s advisor and later headless corpse. He advised her: just tell them to eat cake–eighteenth century.
FOUR
Adolph Hitler, but not the infamous one; just a poor lad born at the wrong time in Germany with a very unfortunate name–early twentieth century.
THREE
Raccoon who was shot, but later gained fame as Fess Parker’s hat–mid twentieth century.
TWO
Big stupid tuna fish caught in a net. Later became part of a casserole that Edwina Fornwaller took to a pot-luck dinner. It was dry and not well received–late twentieth century.
ONE
Bigfoot. Spent time lurking just out of sight, and being captured in grainy indistinguishable photographs–whenever.