Saturday, August 4, 2007

Wikipedia...The Bane of My Existence

Wikipedia.org.... the source of 21st Century light and knowledge. Hundreds of millions of people contribute to what may become the single most complete database of information ever known to man. And I'm never going back. Thanks to Wikipedia.org, as well as Megs who started this downward spiraling cycle of low self-esteem, I have discovered that many parts of my life have been in-reality, a lie.

It all started with a simple claim on my part, that humans are physically inferior to almost every other God-made creature on earth. Even a squirrel. I claimed (and still do) that if one of us were to get in a fight with a squirrel, we'd have our eyes gouged out before we could say 'acorn'. Megs told me that I was crazy to think that a human could get beat up by a guinea pig's cousin, which started me thinking, "I bet that guinea pigs could be pretty nasty out in the wild before they're domesticated and put in their little cage of wood shavings and newspaper..." Megs told me that there are no such things as wild guinea pigs and after bantering back-and-forth for a moment she uttered the ultimately dooming words "Well let's check Wikipedia then..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinea_pigs

In the fourth line we read "while they are no longer extant in the wild, they..." Kiboshed.

Once we got on this Wikipedia adventure, Megs decided to keep it going, referring back to discussions that we had had previously. The day before, we were sitting on Megs' front step and saw a daddy long-legs spider crawl across the sidewalk. While the little lanky bug was creeping his way along, I commented on the well-known fact that daddy long-legs spiders are the most poisonous spiders in the world, but their mouths are so small that they can't bite us, so they're of no threat to us. So in an effort to sucker-punch my self-esteem, I again heard the words "Well let's check Wikipedia then..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvestman

Scroll down to the first paragraph in the Physical Description section, 11th and 12th lines, "Harvestmen do not have silk glands and do not possess poison glands, posing absolutely no danger to humans." Again, kiboshed.

Lastly, as a continuation of our "Animals-can-beat-the-tar-out-of-humans" discussion, I raised the point that even some plants are man-eating; further illustrating my point that humans are poorly equipped physically to survive, and that without our brains, we wouldn't stand a chance in H-E-Double-Hockeysticks of surviving. Meghan quipped that such plants don't even exist, to which I hastily replied "Well why do they call them man-eating plants then?" Alas for one last time to my final demise I heard the words "Well let's check Wikipedia then..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-eating_tree

As we read in the second line, "No such plant is known to exist." Third time's the charm?... Kiboshed.

In conclusion, why would I ever return to Wikipedia? I guess the next time I have a dream or a wish or think of anything good in this life, I can always turn to that menacing site to have my dreams crushed, wishes shattered and all the goodness of this life strangled to death by all that is wrong in this cruel world.