Somewhere in academia is a grant writer so gifted that she/he landed funding for a study to inspire sloths.
The result, reported on NPR this morning, is that the lumbering beasts remained resolutely slothful, even when bribed with spaghetti.
I can see the thinking here. With two-thirds of the sloth's weight usually being stomach contents, perhaps the way to its heart could be its stomach.
But nope, a sloth is a sloth. Expecting it to bounce about like an aerobics instructor is like expecting the Republicans not to clap Tuesday night. I don't need a grant to postulate that if THEY were offered spaghetti THEY'D still clap -- even if the Commander in Chief was announcing the results of the sloth study.
This is not to say that human behavior is impervious to spaghetti - the list of things I would consider doing for a Spaghetti Parm with Meatball from Chef's is embarassingly long. But there is a level of personal hardwiring that can not be short-circuited.
One of the greatest joys of a midlife relationship that works is knowing there will always be things about your partner that drive you up a wall-- but since you can't do a darn thing about them it's your choice how high up the wall you want to go.
In your 20s and 30s you spend a lot of time bouncing off the ceiling. In time you discover the view from the baseboard is rather nice and the world will not end because he leaves the unopened mail in scattered piles.
In fact, I'm nearly ready to admit that immediately throwing away all the junk mail, extraneous inserts and empty envelopes does not stave off Armageddon.
But it doesn't mean I'll stop doing it - not even for spaghetti.


Copyright 2007 Judi Griggs