In The Beginning There Was Casual Friday
By Professor Billy Ray Stumphitch (Th.D.)
Liberty University Press; 327 pp. $38.99
This book has an unusual pedigree. It was commissioned in 2004 by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, founder of Liberty University. Falwell had, for years, expressed frustration over the secular world’s refusal to grant intellectual legitimacy to the ideas of Intelligent Design. Finally, in late 2003, he announced that archaeologists working for his university had unearthed, “in Jordan, or someplace like that,” a cache of “pre-historic memos” that purported to describe the bureaucratic wrangling and debates that accompanied the Creation.
Here, Falwell maintained, was proof, not only that God had created the heavens and the Earth, but that He had done so the same way a modern corporation would have approached the project: with design teams, specialist consultations, inter-departmental spit-balling, and anxiety over deadlines.
He commissioned Prof. Billy Ray Stumphitch to compile and annotate the memos. To critics—some of whom were Liberty U. scholars—who wondered at certain apparent anachronisms (the documents were written in English; the names are contemporary; they mention a “water cooler,” etc.) Falwell smilingly replied, “He’s God. He can do anything He wants.” It was an argument no one in Falwell’s circle could refute.
Falwell died in 2007 while the book was still in preparation. One imagines he would have been delighted with the result. Below, we present an excerpt of a section concerning some of the more problematic features of the human body.
FROM: Intelligent Design Project Managing Angels
TO: Team Human Body
SUBJECT: Design issues
DATE: Friday, March 12, 6032 B.C.
First, this memo supersedes yesterday’s on the utility of toes. That can wait.
We just went over the latest specs in the Man/Woman packet for Project Genesis. There is lots of admirable, even divine, stuff. But given that the Client wants our wonder boy to have dominion over every living thing that moveth upon the Earth, and that it’s already Friday (“tick tock”), we thought we ought to get our notes down to you on the 23rd Cloud ASAP.
These design flaws MUST be corrected by tomorrow midday. The Client expects to wrap up the final stage of Project Genesis on Saturday and then rest on Sunday. Keep in mind that, when He beholds every thing that He hath made, we want Him to say, “It is good.” Or at least good enough to legally constitute completion of the contract under the terms defined therein. Anyway, we have every confidence you in Creative will put aside our little difference of opinion about working the weekend and wrap up these details.
#1: HAIR MAT DESIGN FLAW
Woman’s hair looks great—very natural, manageable, and full of bounce and shine. Especially in Figure #5, where she’s wearing it longer and kind of back. (We agree with Kevin: it somehow seems right that hers should be longer the Man’s. Plus Jeanine up here on the 947th Cloud is pretty adamant about it.)
But now the troubling part: Man’s hair appears to have some kind of defect that causes it to fall out in 50% of test subjects over 30 years of age, with a resulting loss of body heat and an unfortunate buttock-like appearance on the top of the head. How anyone imagines we can “slip” fifty percent past the Client defies belief. . We notice R & D expressed concerns way back on Tuesday that Man’s extra testosterone could cause a glitch like this. We understand that the testosterone was a last-minute shot in the dark to help Man fulfill the “be-fruitful-and multiply” agenda of the project proposal, and we’re not pointing fingers, but we urge you to correct this.
Harland, your idea of a make-good offer of bonus ear-, nose-, and back-hair for affected Men didn’t go over that well with anyone up here. “Who,” Sarah asked, “Wants hairy ears?” But do keep pitching.
#2: REPURPOSING REPRODUCTIVE ORGANS
This is a potential calamity and quite possibly a deal-breaker. Maybe it’s our fault, for expressing so much enthusiasm re the jazzy and imaginative sex organs you came up with (Katherine, we’ll get to your foreskin memo at tomorrow’s breakfast meeting), but to simply use the same materials-handling conduit for eliminating toxic liquid waste? This raises “efficiency” to the level of a fetish and makes us all look bad. We know going back to the board on penises and vaginas isn’t anybody’s idea of a good time, but we don’t call this ”Intelligent Design” for nothing. We feel confident that you have the pride to work through the night, if necessary, to come up with a separate urination unit that’s functional and still tons of fun. And there’s plenty of free space to locate whatever sort of release valve you dream up. Just a quick glance at the blueprints shows there’s room in the mid-lower back and the crook of both elbows. and Earl had a cute (to some) idea: putting our new wing-ding in the middle of the forehead. It’s worthy considering.
These are just springboards, of course. We know you’ll dazzle us tomorrow. But bear in mind that, if an acceptable alternative isn’t found, we’ll have no choice but to ship the prototype with the current baffling—and, frankly, somewhat distasteful—design.
#3: THE APPENDIX
It took us a while to spot it on the new specs. A last-minute addition with no function that’s called an “appendix”? Under less dire circumstances I suppose it would be amusing, but the prospect of such a useless—and possibly dangerous—“gag item” slipping past Quality Control, and ending up in Man’s body, is anything but. Let’s save the jokes for the water cooler.
#4: BREAST ISSUES
Again, congratulations on the whole breast concept. It’s a total “home run.” The focus groups were thrilled. The breasts’ appeal seems to cross over all demographic lines: The prototype Woman loved the decorative potential and nipple erections, and the handy dual-bosom design makes it seem like you’re carrying a spare milk bottle wherever you go (her words!). And Boy and Girl alike responded positively to its handy snacking capabilities. But the real surprise has been Proto-Man’s reaction. He’s taken a completely unexpected interest in the look, feel and possible arrangements of Woman’s breasts. The angels over in Marketing are even noodling around with the notion that the “toy-etic” appeal of their semi-spherical shape could be applied retroactively to some of the less-inspired fruits and vegetables that Team Produce released on Wednesday. (Morgan, in an intra-department memo: “Why SHOULD eggplants be flat?”)
Thus, a long overdue “way to go!” to Donna and Trudy in Upper Torso for all their hard work on the design, as well as to Chet, Morris, Carl, Ty, Bob, Randy, Steve and Darren for taking time away from mixing mucous to make it happen.
One little question cropped up that we didn’t have the answer to, however. Proto-Man was wondering why he has nipples, too. We figured it was an oversight stemming from using the same layouts for both male and female designs. Either that, or some spurious concern with “equality.” But before you correct it on the specs, Man had a few interesting ideas in the Q & A follow-up session for possible ways to repurpose his nipples:
- Red and white wine dispensers
- Two more penises.
- Actual breasts, just like the Woman’s, only really really huge, in order that he might subdue the fish of the sea and the winged fowl of the air.
No pressure, of course, but maybe there’s something there.
#4: THE COCCYX
No reason to go over well-trod ground here, but we made a commitment to the Client way back when the Earth was without form and void (could it be it was only Monday?) that our Man would walk erect. No leaning on his knuckles, no slithering out from the primal soup. And no tails. And yet here we are, with our delivery date tomorrow, and we still see the remnants of a tail at the end of the spine. This—and I’m frankly shocked that this need be said– is totally unacceptable.
As you know, we’ve tried covering up this design flaw with buttocks, even though none of the beasts and the fowl and the fish and the creeping things that creepeth upon the Earth have them. They have flanks, yes, and fins and tailfeathers but not big, fat, round lumps like that. It just makes Man look a little silly, frankly. Woman can carry it off better, probably because her breasts make her look more symmetrical or something.
Anyway, it’s too late now to make structural changes to the prototypes, so we’ll just have to hope the Client doesn’t notice when he finally descends from His Empyrean. We’re going to take the position that it’s extra padding, since Man’s bound to fall on his buttocks a lot, what with being expected to suddenly stand up and start walking erect come tomorrow. (Note to Eric: go ahead and book the test track for Man; those penguins will walk straight when pigs fly, which BTW was the same sub-contractor, wasn’t it?)
Again, we know you’ll have all these design flaws corrected by the time we’re back in the Upper Vestibule tomorrow. Right now we’re heading out to try to put out the fire on this whole dinosaur mess. We know blanketing the earth with giant reptiles wasn’t your idea, but if anybody has a brainstorm about what to do with the hideous things short of killing them all and burying them in Montana, we’ll be reachable through Jeanine.
