Do you wake up in the morning and think, “What in this big, incredible world am I going to learn today?”
It could be the thing you never imagined.
Or, it might be something that you always suspected.
Either way, the learning is there if we are open to it.
Take, for example, the platypus. I’ve never met a platypus. Maybe because I’ve never been to Australia and don’t plan on going. But that is where the platypus lives. It is a bit of a recluse, too, which makes things all the more difficult for a one-on-one.
Anyway. Most of us know that they like to flop about in freshwater rivers and creeks. Egg-layer. Venomous. They are a bit of an oddity, with their webbed feet and bills like ducks. They have those bodies like otters and flappy tails like beavers.
Old news.
But today, I learned that they produce milk for their babies. (Ahhhhh.). Except. They don’t have nipples.
Here’s the thing. I think one day during creation, like the fourth day or something, God was sitting around taking a mini-break. Not the big break like he did on the seventh day. Anyway, St. Peter comes along and says, “Hey God, Whasssup?” God says, “Yo. Petey-boy. Not much, dude. Hey, who in the heck is watching the gate?”
St. Pete says, “Oh, I left Gabriel there for a minute or two. He’ll be fine. Or she. I can never tell by looking at him/her. So, God, you look a little worn out. You hungry?”
“I could use a snack,” God says.
“I found a bunch of these mushrooms over in Mexico today. Have a few.”
Well, God gulps them down with a cold Heineken.
And the next thing you know, he is standing on the boulder, and he’s back to creating all sorts of shit. Like the Muntjac deer, the Hagfish, the Pink Fairy Armadillo. And, of course, the you-know-who.
God stands there, gowns flapping in the wind… “Let there be Platypus!”
I’ll give him webbed feet and a bill. Just like a duck. And how about an otter body? Oh, wait, I know. A tail like a beaver. This little thing is going to swim like a beast. But wait. Let’s make this guy fun. An egg-laying mammal. Yeah, that’s it. With no nipples. Baaaa, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.”
And that’s how it happened. The platypus has no nipples. Instead, it creates milk but must excrete that milk all over their stomachs. And from there, their babies lick it up. It gets more complicated. Because of this, the feeding process is less hygienic than that of other mammals because the milk doesn’t go straight from a nipple to the mouth of the baby platy. To combat the possibility of bacterial infection or illness, that platypus milk has an elevated amount of antibacterial proteins. God threw that in as a bonus feature.
Yep. Yes, indeed. That is what I learned today. No nipples on those milk-producing platypuses.
I never imagined it when I woke up this morning. But there it is.
The world is full of wonderful particulars. One after the next.
I hope your day is enriched.
Like platypus milk.
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“Creativity is intelligence having fun.” – Albert Einstein
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“The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul.” – Dieter F. Uchtdorf
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“In every work of art, the spirit of the age and the individual artist combine to produce a phenomenon that no one, not even the artist himself, can explain.” – Lee Krasner
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Let there be no nipples there, duck face.
