I'll Be Your Tribesman

Today Tyler mentioned that some of her friends went on a National Geographic cruise trip to Antarctica.

Well, whoooop-tee-dooo.

I'm sure, like several of my ex-girlfriends, Antarctica was lovely, frigid, forbidding, and yet somehow extremely fascinating.

As you may have guessed - it does NOT sound great to me, but I would never discourage you from going on such a trip. In fact - go! I encourage it!

Me? I don’t see much point in taking a National Geographic trip anywhere there aren’t sweaty naked people. After 10 formative years furiously thumbing through National Geographics for photos of naked tribespeople (’87 was a good year); I’m not sure I can go through life fulfilled without gawking at an indigenous people group clad in the altogether at least once.

I find it fascinating that in 2010 there are still entire societies on earth that wander around in various stages of undress. It’s fantastic. By the time I shuffle off this mortal coil I will have spent something like .055% of my lifespan on the mind-numbing chore of taking things to get cleaned that these people groups did away with altogether! And WE claim to be the more “evolved” tribe?

The general anthropological study is interesting I guess, but I just can’t quite wrap my mind around it. Can you imagine what our society would be reduced to if shirts were optional?? I, for one, wouldn’t get a single useful thing done, and I certainly wouldn’t have sufficient focus to hunt or gather. The power grid would flicker and go completely out by day 5 and by day 200 the US population would have either happily starved to death with peaceful smiles on their faces or doubled – I’m not sure which.

Without the dry cleaner we’d be just another group of sweaty tribesmen with barely enough focus left to sharpen a pointy stick.

Hug your dry cleaner today. He'll understand.