E-Mail This Article to a Friend Memo to God A few suggestions for nipping and tucking the universe BY CHRIS WRIGHT

Re: Creation, and improvements therein

Cc: Jesus; the Holy Ghost

Bcc: Pope John Paul II

God, I know you and your team have been working on the bugs (glitches, that is, not insects) in this Planet Earth project, and I have some suggestions you might find useful. I’m sending you a few ideas. I’ll have a full report by Monday.

Birds. Last time we talked, I floated the idea of birds being given ears, which I thought would be cute. You rightly brought up the issue of aerodynamics. Do you think we can at least give them eyebrows? This might solve the lack-of-facial-expression issue we discussed. I see a parakeet looking at its food tray and raising its eyebrows as if to say, You call that a meal?

Puffins. I know you’ve put a lot of work into this, but the one bird that does have a facial expression looks to me as though it’s always worrying about something. Can we make puffins look less miserable? Maybe a bigger, funnier beak might do the trick, something in the toucan line. Bushy eyebrows, perhaps?

Shapes. Simply put, there are too many. I mean, what the heck is a rhombus? Also, I think there are just too many sizes. I’ve enclosed a photograph of an elephant standing beside a mite. Absurd.

Clothes. I thought it might be nice if we allowed people to see through clothes every now and then. I know you’ve toyed with the idea of X-Ray Specs in the past. Any chance we can come up with a pair of these that actually work? At the very least, it’d keep teenage boys (ugh!) occupied.

Teenage boys. While we’re on the subject, what do you think about making boys immobile between the ages of, say, 14 and 20? I’m thinking we either put them in a coma or, if that seems excessive, just paralyze them from the neck down.

Explosions. People don’t like these things. If we can’t scrap them altogether, can we at least make them quieter?

Dreams. I think dreams are just too weird. They should be a little more Tom Hanks and a little less David Lynch. Maybe upbeat soundtracks would help. Also, it might be fun to have recognizable stars, people like Melissa Gilbert and David Hasselhoff, make cameo appearances from time to time.

Music. I think the world would be a much nicer place if everybody could sing. Everybody but Michael Bolton. And I’d like to talk to you about bagpipes. Are these some kind of sick joke?

Phlegm. I say we do away with this altogether; it’s just gross. Also, can bowel movements be made less frequent — say, biweekly? And I’m still concerned about floaters (two-flushers), which are unsavory and a waste of water. Pee’s working for me — I thought the asparagus thing was a nice touch. But farts — what are they for?

Stains. As far as I can gather, these things serve no useful purpose other than to ruin perfectly good jackets. Let’s get rid of them.

Dogs. I don’t know if you’ve been keeping up with the dog-bite situation down here, but it’s not good. I think canines can be made toothless without too much sacrifice — most dog foods are easily gummed. Also, we should talk about the leg-humping/crotch-sniffing thing; it’s funny, but a little crass, don’t you think?

Feet. Okay, you’ve convinced me that feet are necessary. Can we at least lose the toes? It seems to me feet would be a lot less smelly, a lot neater, if they were just stumps. We should run some numbers on this.

Hair. Is there a reason that gray hairs grow more vigorously than normal ones? Also, gray pubes are just wrong. Lose those. And while we’re on the subject, pubic hair should never be straight.

The platypus. This thing is an embarrassment. Frankly, a lot of people think you must have been drunk when you made it. Same thing goes for Billy Bob Thornton. I think we should either give it wings or lose the beak, don’t you? (The platypus, that is, not Billy Bob Thornton.)

Language. You can take a sticky stick and stick it — fine — a canner can Can-Can on the can — o-kay — but for the life of me I can’t figure out why a sand flea can flee sand but a fruit bat can’t bat fruit. And have you ever heard of a rhino having rhinoplasty? Maybe I’m missing something.

Metaphors. No offense, God, but I think you tend to complicate things sometimes. A cigar should always be just a cigar.

Fire. It seems weird to me that lighting a barbecue should be such an ordeal while couches explode into flames the instant a cigarette is dropped on them. We should either come up with some kind of cigarette/couch-stuffing kit for lighting barbecues, or make couches out of briquettes — maybe both.

Cows. What do you think about the idea of making udders less pronounced? There’s something almost sexual about them, and those popping veins put people off drinking milk. Can’t we fit cows with some kind of little nozzle?

Gravity. Yes, it keeps us anchored to the earth, blah blah blah, but a lot of people get hurt when they fall out of windows. If we can’t make changes to gravity, we should make it so that people bounce rather than go splat.

Food. There are a lot of problems here. Cilantro is good for you and bacon isn’t? Silly foods like parsnips, capers, and arugula we should just ditch. Oh, and this might seem like a crazy idea, but it occurred to me that it might be fun to make fog taste nice.

Penguins. People love penguins, they hate pigeons. It stands to reason, then, that people would be happier if we put penguins in the cities and pigeons in the Antarctic. Also, would it be possible to make penguins speak?

Sin. Seven’s a good number, but times have changed. I, for one, would like to see the practice of starting a question by saying Question! added to the list.

Cats. There seems to be a design flaw with these. The thing is, if you take a cat and throw it really hard at the ground, it doesn’t land on its feet. Can we fix this?

Well, God, that’s about it. Maybe we can talk next week. I know you’re busy right now, what with the war in Iraq and so on. Which reminds me, maybe we should discuss this war thing. It’s unclear to me which side you’re on.

Chris Wright can be reached at cwright[a]phx.com