Cryogenics
THE FUNNY SIDE OF LIFE
February 23, 2024 at 11:33 a.m.
Sy Rosen
...by Sy Rosen
It’s comforting to know that even great sports heroes can have dysfunctional families.
I can relate. My Aunt Gussy and Aunt Flora haven’t spoken in forty-five years – ever since the day Gussy claimed she was the one who looked like Jackie Kennedy and Flora (who was wearing a new pillbox hat) was just putting on airs.
Anyway, back to Ted Williams, it seems that he really was interested in cryogenics. Maybe he thought that by the time they thawed him out there would be a professional Senior Baseball League and he could reach the magical level of a 400-batting average one more time. Or maybe he just wanted to get some use out of a new overcoat he bought.
At any rate, I figured if cryogenics was good enough for Ted, it was worth looking into.
There’s a place in Denver where you can get in on it for a mere equivalent of approximately 40 Sub-Zero Refrigerators. They freeze you right before you’re going to die and then hopefully bring you back later when there’s a cure for whatever’s ailing you or the world is a better place to live in (in other words, when The Real Housewives show is off the air).
I have a few problems with this. First of all, like just about everybody else, I’m not sure if cryogenics actually works. No one’s been frozen and brought back yet (although some people I know like they're in the middle of the process). Secondly, and most importantly, I don’t know if I need cryogenics because I’m not completely convinced that I’m ever going to die.
It’s possible that I can somehow slip under the radar. Maybe there’s one food that’s slowly killing everybody and for some reason I’m the only person in the world that’s never eaten it. The only problem is I can’t think of any food that I haven’t eaten. I’m also not sure that I want to come back after being away for about fifty years. My granddaughters would be grandmas, and all my favorite sweatshirts have probably been thrown away. I’m also worried that during my absence, high cholesterol will have been declared healthy and I’d have missed out on years of guilt-free, fatty pastrami.
The thing is, it feels like there’s something slightly scandalous and unethical about cryogenics. Sensing there may be a big story here, I decided to visit a cryogenics plant. Using my investigative reporter techniques I looked up cryogenics in the yellow pages and went to a facility. As I walked up to the warehouse, I imagined bodies hanging by thin wires with icicles clinging to their nostrils. It turns out I went to the wrong cryogenics place and they only froze vegetables. There were no frozen bodies.
Trying to make the most of the situation I asked Stan, the middle aged, slightly overweight, constantly irritated manager if he thought it was ethical to freeze bodies. Stan gruffly replied that they only dealt with zucchinis and tomatoes. Trying to sound like a legitimate reporter, I asked, “Yeah, but if a vegetable was a person, would you want it to be frozen?”
Stan led me out of the warehouse.
Depressed that I hadn’t unearthed some major story, I went to McDonald’s for a double Big Mac. All this talk about vegetables had made me hungry.
As I sat at my table I thought of all the moral, religious, economical and political arguments for and against cryogenics and decided to go with my initial gut reaction that I wasn’t going to die.
And then, as if from a sign from above, I realized that one of my fries was still halffrozen. I looked at it for a beat and then quickly ate it.
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