The other day, I was driving home from work. As I am pulling onto our street, I get a call from my wife. She is all in a tizzy, saying that 2016 was not done. Now for those that are unfamiliar, there was mass hysteria over the pop culture shit that happened in 2016. A lot of celebrities died, and politics went straight to shit. Now before people say, "2016 was the worst", let's get real. The celebrities that died were either old, or had abused the shit out of their bodies. Everyone who's upset about David Bowie, Prince, Princess Leia, and George Michaels forget that those celebrities fucked themselves up. I mean, we are talking about hardcore drug and alcohol abuse. If they didn't abuse chemicals, they were caught up in some hardcore controversies. Let's be honest for a moment; 2016 didn't do shit to kill people. They did shit to kill themselves. It sounds harsh, and I am not discrediting that many were artistic losses, but goddamn. You cannot do a metric fuck-tonne of drugs and then assume that shit won't come back for you.
For those that don't know, the picture is of George R. R. Martin. He writes the Game of Thrones series, and kills every fucking character. A lot. But back to my story. My wife called me, and she was in a panic. She said that there were only a few days left in 2016, and the year was not going to end nicely. I asked her what was wrong, and my wife said to just get home and she would tell me. Now, let's be clear. My preggers wife called, telling me there was terrible news, and that I needed to get home before she could tell me. I asked if there was an issue with the baby, which (thankfully) she said "no". Even so, the news is so bad that it made her want to cry.
I get home, and I ask my wife what happened. I'm expecting someone we know to have been seriously injured or killed. My wife comes up to me, tears in her eyes, and says that we are descended from archaea. Now for those who are not aware of what that means, let me explain. There are three domains, to which all biological life can be attributed: archaea, bacteria, and eukaryotes. The first two are prokaryotes, meaning that they do not have cell walls. In fact, prokaryotes lack many qualities that eukaryotes have. That is not as important. What is important, is that my wife hated archaea. She considered archaea to be the lowest of all lifeforms. Yes, they were ancient, but they couldn't even build a cell wall. Eukaryotes were so good at building walls that China had a great one, and Trump won a presidency with the promise of one.
Why did my wife respect bacteria? Because those assholes could take a eukaryote down. Bacteria is incredibly effective at infecting and multiplying. Archaea? Archaea doesn't do shit. Well, as it turns out, new science suggests that an archaea once consumed a bacteria, and it caused a mutation to create eukaryotes. That's right, we share our genetics with my wife's least favorite domain of biological life. How serious is this? Imagine a Grand Wizard of the KKK finding out that they had a black grandfather. That's how serious this fucked up my wife.
When I stared at her - confused - and then started to chuckle, my wife hit me. She said that this was not funny, and asked me how we would tell our son that he is genetically linked to archaea. Now I can tell you, I had no fucking clue how to discuss this. I thought we had discussed "big reveals". We had discussed what we would do if our kids end up being members of the LBGTQ community. And yes, I worded it that way because I have no fucking clue how many different sexual identities and orientations there are. We had discussed what we would do if our kids chose to believe in a faith that was not our own, or chose not to believe in any spiritual/religious construct. In pretty much every case, we agreed to support our kids. Yet, when it comes to telling them that people are descended from archaea, my wife had an identity crisis.
I get home, and I ask my wife what happened. I'm expecting someone we know to have been seriously injured or killed. My wife comes up to me, tears in her eyes, and says that we are descended from archaea. Now for those who are not aware of what that means, let me explain. There are three domains, to which all biological life can be attributed: archaea, bacteria, and eukaryotes. The first two are prokaryotes, meaning that they do not have cell walls. In fact, prokaryotes lack many qualities that eukaryotes have. That is not as important. What is important, is that my wife hated archaea. She considered archaea to be the lowest of all lifeforms. Yes, they were ancient, but they couldn't even build a cell wall. Eukaryotes were so good at building walls that China had a great one, and Trump won a presidency with the promise of one.
(The above link is a comedy skit, based on the concept of a black, white supremacist)
Moral of the Story: My wife is still pissed about being related to archaea, and still pissed that I am not more outraged.
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