Beverly Hills is going to love this company
I stumbled on the Website of the Genetic Savings & Clone on April 1st. I figured it had to be an April fool's gag. The name and logo (below) are just too damn perfect to be real.
Then I saw the ad: "Cat Cloning Price Reduction!" Slowly, the figure $32,000 fades in. I kept browsing and chuckling, chuckling and browsing, clickety clickety click, Ha Ha.
This is no joke. This company is for real, and if they haven't caught on yet with the collagen-injected, botox-shootin', jawline stretchin', nose reducin', chemical peelin', 4-chihuahua jet set divorcees, it will. And Japan. If it's outrageous, you can always count on Japan.
Then I remembered a charming comment Nikki made about a month ago. We were out walking Ab (chocolab, age 8). Not particularly lab-savvy, I asked, "How long do labs typically live, anyway?"
"Forever."
So I brought up the GS&C the other day, just for the sake of conversation. It went something like this: "Yea, it's true. When Ab's nearing her dust phase, we could take her to a participating vet for sampling, and then whisk her DNA off to the GS&C and they'll have Ab II gestating in some poor bitch in matter of days."
[Brief pause]
"For 32 thousand bucks."
[Long pause]
"Nah"
Many will think this is the greatest thing since [your favorite cliché here], but it's not something I'd ever consider. And not just because of that price. As hilarious as it is, they'll get it. Ab II would have to have an almost exact series of experiences and training to really be Ab II instead of just Spot, the dog that looks eerily similar to Ab. Ab II wouldn't have the same little habits and favorite places to poo. She probably wouldn't howl in her sleep or carry my socks into hard-to-reach places. I might be able to train her to do some of those things, but there's nature, then there's nurture, and then there's that random 5% or so.
I think it's that random 5% that makes the individual, moreso than the size and color and spots and bark and general disposition. I think it would cheapen Ab to create an Ab II.
So no thanks, but I'll be watching out for that GS&C IPO.
Labels: advertising
7 Comments:
it is an interesting diversion from what one might call "real" scientific work, but if someone's gonna pay...but, i gather that these types of outfits don't have (or haven't had) great success rates, which might mean eating your 32k in the end. and no matter what these companies admit about the issues you raise (that "muffy II" ain't by any stretch "muffy I"), they exist out of an eery mixture of gross sentimentality, profit motive, and cool science.
10:17 AM
I lived next door to someone several years ago who introduced herself to me by requesting that if I ever saw her big, fat, orange cat, Fluffy, dead on the road, to please let her know as soon as possible. She requested I not call Animal Control or the street sweeper because she would take Fluffy to the taxidermist to have her stuffed upright, chasing a butterfly. Eek. Thankfully, I moved before Fluffy died.
3:03 PM
Yea, Lee, but your current next door neighbor still has several creepy kid dolls staring out the front window. I'll take a stuffed cat over that any day.
3:12 PM
I don't know. I'd rather have a doll staring at me. A pet that used to be alive is really, really freaky.
5:36 AM
I saw a tail sticking out of the rear door of a minivan two days ago. This matters, somehow. Work with me.
11:36 AM
So about a month ago I was having an early morning talk with my neighbor, a native Portlander. I had just asked him why Portland is so full of freaks, and he answered that P-landers pride themselves on being eccentric. Well, the timing was absolutely perfect (and this is no joke)...about 2 minutes later along comes this very "normal" looking man cradling what appears to be a stiff raccoon. As he approached, we noticed that tenderly swaddled in a puple baby blanket was a cairn terrier, stiff as a rock and with all four legs (paws? whatever)up in the air as if reaching toward the heavens!! Yikes. I turned to my neighbor and proudly stated, "I rest my case." He just sighed...I turned went in the house. I'll take cloning ANY day over that sad sight.
11:45 AM
Well good timing! The guy was carrying around his dead pet? I assume it was stuffed, and not cairn carrion?
The former is really, really weird. The latter enters the lunatic area.
1:05 PM
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