Monday 28 September 2009

Do you ever listen to the announcements when you are on your way round the supermarket? Usually they are of no interest, as they are asking someone you don't know to go to somewhere you couldn't find to do something you couldn't do. "Alec to the chill store, please - the in-valve needs fixing", leaves me cold, so to speak.

The other day, though, the announcement really made me laugh. It ran like this: "all GM staff to the main office please" Straight away my fertile imagination was sparked to wonder in what sense they were GM? How, exactly, had these staff been genetically modified? Perhaps they had been given telescopic legs to reach the top shelves, or eyes which could scan every item to cut back on checkout staff?

Come to think of it, the scope to genetically modify people for their chosen profession could be amazing. Apart from the obvious ones like athletes with huge muscles and opera singers with enormous lungs - what about firemen with asbestos skin or police officers with x-ray vision? A mad scientist could have a field day, and make a big fortune too.

Thankfully, that day is far off. The real dignity and wonder of the human race is to be found in our ability to make the best of what we HAVE got, rather than worrying about what we haven't. An American friend of mine used to say that "what you are is God's gift to you, but what you make of yourself is your gift to God" She had a point. We show far more gratitude to God by accepting who we are and making the best of it, rather than wasting our days away longing to be someone else. If we are to be modified at all, it's by our hard work and God's good grace, rather than any science fiction fantasy.

Meanwhile, as I wandered around my supermarket with that silly grin still on my face, it struck me that, of course, GM stood for "general management". How dull, I thought. My ideas for the perfect supermarket worker will just have to be shelved, and in the meantime I'll work on being the best version of me.