What do you call those things?
Sometimes I have trouble sleeping at night and my thoughts wander down strange pathways. I started thinking about how it must have been in the early days when all was new and fresh; right after God finished making everything and put Adam in the Garden of Eden.
Yes, everything was new and fresh, but nothing had names yet, so it must have been a bit confusing what with this and that and the other thing as well as the whatchyamacallit. God had just finished a week of hard labor, so I expect he was tired. This is how I think it went:
In the beginning, God created heaven and earth and he named a few things like Night and Day, Heavens and the Earth, but he quickly grew tired of it and created Adam and then sat back to see what Adam would call things. Well Adam got the bit in his teeth and went at it with a vengeance!
Adam said: “Bird”! at those flittery things in the air and “Ant” at those red crawly things on the ground and in a fit of inspiration, “Caterpillar”! at that fat, bristly thing on a leaf. By then he was ready for a coffee break but he didn’t have a pot to pee in, much less one to make coffee in, so he spoke right up about this and said “God, how come I don’t have any appliances? And by the way, it’s a little chilly this morning and you didn’t give me a fur coat, so could you turn up the heat a bit?
Well, God was old, and a bit cranky, and he didn’t appreciate a whiner too much so he was thinking “yeah, I can turn up the heat all right!”, but he didn’t say that. He decided to hold his tongue and be reasonable with this mere mortal who was literally, still wet behind the ears. “Listen Bud! You haven’t done enough work to merit a coffee break yet, so get busy!”
So Adam settled down to work. First he named the Grass and the Trees and the Worms and the Bees. The he got up and walked around and named Aardvarks to Zebras and all of that was exhausting! Finally God called him to lunch and fed him bread and honey and told him he was still working on the coffee thing.
After lunch Adam spoke to God saying ‘you know naming things is really a lot of fun but it is exhausting because it is so cerebral, it takes a lot of creativity. I’d like to make sure I’m doing it right so if you can, I need a partner to help with this job.” Well this argument made some sense to God so he put Adam into a deep sleep, and took a rib from him and made woman. “Incidentally, this is why men still get sleepy after a big lunch.)
God figured Adam would be out for at least an hour so he had plenty of time to do this. He decided to make a new, improved, sleeker model this time around so he shaped woman a bit differently and tweaked her mind so that she had slightly different values and more convoluted thinking.
Then Adam woke up, yawned and stretched and God said, “well, what do you think, pointing to his new creation. Adam said “Wow! He’s pretty!” “Look dummy!" God exclaimed, "that is Eve, she is not a him, she is a her! Notice the lack of external plumbing? I tucked it all inside nice and neat like, gave her nice smooth skin and inserted a little fat in all the right places to give her nice clean, rounded lines. Isn’t she a beaut?”
Adam readily agreed but then he asked, “what are the cute bumps on the chest for?” “Decorations” God said, “and they will also be handy for feeding babies” “What are babies asked Adam?” “Eve will explain all that later” God said, “right now I want you two to go over to the pool and get acquainted and tomorrow morning you two get back to work and name things”.
After Adam and Eve got acquainted, their lives became much more interesting. The next morning they started naming things, Adam did the primary colors, Black, White, Red, etc. and then Eve jumped in with Chartreuse and Mauve. “Mauve for God’s sake? What is a Mauve?” Adam shouted! “You said you wanted my help and now you are yelling at me!” sobbed Eve. Her tears completely disarmed Adam and he mumbled, ”Ok, Ok I guess Mauve and Chartreuse can be colors too”. Eve looked up at him with those big, beautiful, sad, brown eyes and said “do you really think those colors will be alright?” “Yeah, sure, why not?” answered Adam. “Can I have Ecru and Vermillion too?” She asked. “I love those colors”, said Adam. And that’s where men learned how to negotiate with women.
Now Adam was a smart young fellow; so pretty quick he figured out how to work with Eve and when it was time to name the flowers he started right off with Dandelions and Johnny-Jump-Ups and then looked puzzled until Eve took her cue and named Pansy’s, Petunias, Posies, etc. When they got to the pets, he tried it again, naming Dogs, Cats, and so on but Eve apparently disagreed because later she taught their kids that it was a doggie and a kitty with complete disregard for what Adam had named them!
As the morning wore on Adam exclaimed “God, I’m starved, when’s lunch?” There was a long deep silence and finally Eve spoke up, “I heard God say that he had a meeting with a band of Angels today, so he probably isn’t in but I could cook something if you would like.” Cook, what’s cook?” enquired Adam.” Well, you go out and kill something young and juicy, clean it, and I’ll build a fire and roast it for us” explained Eve. “Sounds like a lot of trouble to me, couldn’t we just have bread and honey?” “ Well, yes we could if I knew where God keeps the bread and honey but I don’t, but I suppose we could gather some vegetables and fruit and nuts for lunch. Actually, God Promised to teach me how to bake bread for myself and I suppose he will teach me where to get honey too and he said that you would have to invent an oven so I can bake and I think if you would make me some pots and pans that would be a big help and……….” By this time Adam had wandered off to pick fruit and nuts leaving poor Eve talking to herself and so it has always been.
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