‘Scuse me, are you sure you’re truly amazin’?
May 10, 2015 Ken 0 Comments
Eh, no good lookin’ at me like that, mate, I don’t make the bloody rules, I’m just here to do a few checks, that’s all … calm down … no listen, probably nothin’ to get all upset about … don’t know why you’re getting yourself all wound up, not like anything’s been proved yet, is it?
That’s it … take a few deep breaths … there … feelin’ calmer now? Good!
Now I don’t want this to come as a shock to you but there’s a rumour going around that you’re not actually truly amazin’ at all. I know, it took me by surprise too. Not that it’s my business, but I’d always thought of you as absolutely outstanding, in many ways actually, and well deserving of the term truly amazin’. The mere idea that you might be here, on this blog, as an intruder, a person not truly amazin’ … well … you could have knocked me down wiv a feather, quite frankly. Anyway, nothin’ to be too concerned about … 
So anyway, here’s the thing … I’m not going to take it as gospel, just because someone’s spreading malicious rumours, and I’m sure that’s what they are, just malicious. There may be nothing in them at all, you know? I mean, it wouldn’t be the first time rumours of this kind have been spread maliciously. Some folk are just … well, they’re not very nice, know what I mean? But … and I’m sure you understand this … I have to check … management’s directive. I have to make enquiries, discreet enquiries you understand, just to put these rumours to bed once and for all.
This doesn’t mean I believe them … oh no, please don’t think I’d rush to judge you just on the say-so of some nasty, anonymous rumour monger. But the fact is, I have to check all the same. It’s … y’know … part of the job. Sorry ’bout that. It’s just the way it is. We can’t have ordinary people reading this blog and masquerading as truly amazin’, can we? That wouldn’t do at all, now would it … it could bring down the whole tone of the blog … dilute it, you might say … relegate it to a blog supposedly for the truly amazin’, but in reality visited on occasion by the mere ordinary. Nah, not the same thing at all …
So, anyway, I do hope you can see it from my position. I have to check. That’s all there is to it. Like I said, sorry, I don’t mean to undermine your truly amazingness, if indeed you are truly amazing, I mean. But we have to check these things, that’s all there is to it. It’s just the rules, that’s all … just following rules.
Mmm … right then … where to start …
Mmm … let’s have a look then … one … two … three … mmm … seems you do have a truly amazin’circulatory system alright … round about 60,000 miles of blood vessels by the looks of it, I mean give or take, obviously, (and that’s including all those tiny capillaries, of course). How can I tell? Years of practice, mate, years of practice! And let me see … mmm … yep, you manage to circulate your entire blood supply through all that complicated and minute plumbing in just about one minute … cor blimey, impressive I have to say!
Course, that’s when you’re at rest – you really shift that blood round a lot quicker when you’re exercisin’ or workin’ or whatnot. Boy, you do take care of business where blood’s concerned, I’ll say that for you. And look … wait a minute … yep, you control your heart rate with just the right amount of two very important hormones (acetylcholine, which slows the heartbeat when that’s exactly what’s gotta be done, and norepinephrine, which boosts it up when the pressure’s really on), and the way you keep those two hormones delicately balanced, just enough to make sure your heart’s beating at exactly the right rate, no matter what happens … well … I know I’m repeating myself but … impressive! 
Now … the eyes … well, I mean, eyes are impressive by definition, right? The way they take in light, just plain ol’ light, and make pictures out of it (yeah okay, that’s not just your eyes, that’s a combination of your eyes and your brain – the eyes collect the light and shift it to the ol’ CPU … okay, the brain, if you wanna be strictly, biologically correct! … and the CPU (sorry, brain) decodes the entire light pattern message and comes up with a recognisable image (well, thousands of them every minute actually), and through a system of comparitive reference, based on known and remembered images in a databank built up over an entire lifetime. Wow! That is impressive! Boy oh boy … it’s looking good for you, I have to say. You’re already looking pretty amazin’. See, told you there was nothin’ to worry about!
And hey, talking of the brain, if yours was a computer it would probably be quite capable of performing well over thirty thousand trillion operations a second. Impre—- I mean, that’s quite something, right? But way more impr—- I mean, way more efficient that any electronic computer ever devised. The most powerful one on the planet can’t even get close to one percent of that power. Makes you think, huh? Well, duh! With that kind of computing power thinking about that, or anything really, is a cinch! You could probably think things directly into existence, I shouldn’t wonder … mm … now there’s an idea … I mean, that would be amazin’ … [eyes glazing over]
Hey, I got sidetracked! That shouldn’t happen – I mean, what with me being truly amazin’ and all! 🙂 I was saying about your eyes … hey, do you realise (I just checked and did some calculations inside your eyes, and this is true for you!), your eyes are so sensitive to light that they’d be able to spot a little tiny candle flame on a dark night up to thirty miles away (well, if nothing was in the way, and if the Earth wasn’t curved, they could, but since the Earth’s a bit curvy that kinda puts a crimp in that calculation).
Now let’s take a look at the er … hang on, I was going to say the rest of the five senses but … hold on, just let me check … yep, that’s okay … seems in this respect at least you are truly amazin’ … you have the five senses, of course, and very nice they are too, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so … but hang on … you have a whole bunch of other senses too. There’s the ability to tell time (oh, stop it, I mean without a clock, you know very well what I meant!) … I’ve got that one too and it wakes me up at six o’clock on the dot every day, even if I’ve been up till about four or five catching up on things (yeah I know I shouldn’t but hey, I’m a busy guy, what can I say) … and the sense of balance, which really is quite astonishing (I mean, look at the shape of us, it’s a miracle we don’t fall over all the time, we’re just not built right, y’know?) … and then there’s the sense of hunger, to alert us to the need to eat (I’ve definitely got that one!)… and thirst, so we know we need to drink … not to mention the sense of being full, which stops us eating too much (uh-oh, I notice lots of folk these days aren’t really aware of that sense anymore … explains that tsunami of spreading waistlines and buckling seats and such like) … and the sense of when to make a herculean effort to breathe, if and when breathin’s been interrupted for whatever reason (a really kinda useful sense that one, tends to keep us from dying for want of air) … and, y’know, it just goes on and on … like the sense of humour, of course, which stops us taking ourselves too seriously, and saves us getting depressed if things aren’t exactly going to plan … oh yeah, lots and lots of senses … and you seem to have them all, more or less. Pretty amazin’ really! Er, sorry, I’ll have to stop saying that!
Now let me just check … no no, I won’t be long now, sorry to keep you but, y’know, rules is rules … five, six … yep, seven … right on the button! For every pound of muscle you gain (or fat, for that matter), your body somehow creates round about seven miles of extra blood vessels … wow, on top what you already had … amazing! How the hell do you do that? Well, if you’re truly amazin’ I suppose — hang on, the jury’s still out on that one, let me run a few more tests … no, I promise, these are the last ones now, I won’t keep you … there’s lots of other tests, smaller ones I haven’t even mentioned yet, I mean it’s not like me to bother you with all the details, y’know, but I’m doing the tests anyway …
Let me see now … okay, maybe not quite up to the mark right now, but when you’re in top condition you can run long distances like no-one else in the animal kingdom. And I mean no-one, baby! No-one on two legs, or on four, we come out on top in the long distance running stakes. Long ago, way, way back, as a matter of fact, our ancestors used to outrun animals they were hunting. I mean, literally outrun them! They’d just stay on the case till the poor thing just collapsed out of sheer exhaustion, game over. Admittedly, most of us aren’t quite up to that standard nowadays, I grant you, but we haven’t changed a great deal since we we’re living on the open plains and in caves. Physically, we’re much the same. Impressive! Damn, gotta stop saying that!
But the evidence is stacking up, gotta say! I mean, here’s a thing, I just ran a test on you, a little bio-electrical one, and guess what … you manage to shift nerve impulses to and from the brain at a totally blistering 250 mph! That’s way faster than a Lamborghini Aventador, and that beast (or beauty, depends how you look at it) can hit 60 mph in under 3 seconds, and manages it by way of a 700 horsepower V12 engine (not to mention it costs in the region of half a million dollars)! And for all that, it can only manage about 230 mph … pathetic really! Pales in comparison! [gazes longingly at the image above] Yeah, pathetic … kinda gorgeous at the same time though, dontcha think? It gets left way behind in the nerve impulse stakes, but I bet it delivers one hell of a ride! Wow … [sighs wistfully and tries to focus on his tests]
Okay, I reckon that just about wraps it up … just need to make sure I’ve got everything before I take my leave … y’know, instruments and whatnot. I mean I wasn’t just making wild guesses there y’know, it was all done quite legit and above board and with all the requisite equipment. Everything’s been tested and calibrated and I’m happy to say there’s nothin’ to worry about. Most likely won’t be seein’ you for quite a while now, I reckon … lots of other things to check and regulate, y’know the way it is … you no more finish one job in this game and you’re off takin’ care of the next one … it never ends really, just one long list of tests and checks to see if someone’s really amazin’ or not [sighs and shakes his head] … never bloody ends …
What? Oh sorry, I thought I’d shown you the form … here, look … all stamped an’ everythin’ … I signed it as well … right there, see? Yeah, all taken care of official-like, date stamped and everythin’ … all tests completed and all results verified. If anyone stops you and asks questions, or if there’s any more of those rumours flyin’ around, just tell ’em you’ve been checked and certified, no problem.
An’ you can show them this if you want … there it is, in black and white, see? See what it says at the bottom? 
