So last night I flopped on the couch, snagged the remote, flipped on the learning channel and spent three hours watching freaks.
OK, 'freaks' is not a nice word to use. Even if they are. However I am sure I gawked at my screen with the same amount of amazement as a 1930's carnival patron after he paid ten cents to tour the freak tent.
The first show was about a girl with two heads. She is actually some sort of conjoined twin, but for all sense and purposes she has two heads. What amazes me is one head controls one leg and arm, and visa versa, however they coordinate together perfectly. They walk, ride bikes and even play volleyball. Each hand can write and each head has their own particular taste in food and music.
Naturally, my sick and twisted mind conjures up all sorts of questions of a personal matter, dealing with such mundane things such as ass-wiping as to the sort of sexual relationship she will have when she is older. (Apparently the girl is now sixteen). Will she choose two boyfriends? Or just one? When they want to be intimate will they put a bag on the other twins head, or will is be some sort of bizarre free-for-all with both heads slopping and slurping away?
I read a book once about a family of freaks. One of them was a girl with two torsos on a single set of legs. She ended up selling her virginity to the highest bidder. Actually, one head arranged it; the other one was not pleased with it but went along with it. There is no point in me mentioning this, I just happen to recall it.
The second show was about a little girl with a completely ruined face. I forgot what she had, but it was really sad. Her face was mashed together like putty and her mouth was just a gaping hole that her tongue flapped out of. It was so sad I could hardly watch it. It also unseated some deep-rooted fear about myself becoming a parent one day. It's a really big fear of mine if I were to have a child less then normal. Simple things I could deal with. Midgets or dwarfs or no arms or what have you I doubt I would have a problem with. That's no big deal. However, a child that is severally retarded or had a ruined face like the little girl in that documentary is something I do not know if I would be strong enough to handle.
Am I a bad person for saying that? Perhaps. However, if I were to become a father one day I am not waiting for any 'surprises'. I am hauling that woman down to the ultrasound machine every few weeks. If the fetus has six legs it's coming out.
Going along with the theme I am a bad person, I have to say it also makes me feel better about myself. And that goes for all of you people out there who are depressed or fret over little things. Man, you think you have problems? At least you have a face. Once you have no face a lot of other problems seem really petty by comparison.
The third show I watched was on the most extreme form of dwarfism called 'primordial dwarfism'. These people were small, really small. About the size of two and a half sheets of paper standing on end. These people were strange looking, but they did not have the same sort of stigmata as a person with two heads or a girl with a ruined face. To begin with they are cute. Not just because they are small, but the way their faces are laid out they look kind of like Fraggles. It seems they would not have any real problems socializing. They showed the mother taking her little girl to the mall. People stopped and gawked, but a lot of them wanted to pick her up and hug her. When you are three years old that is probably a great feeling. I am sure that will all change when they get older. However, the main problem these people face doesn't seem to be socialization, it's the actually physical limitations of the world around them. When you are only 30 inches tall the world can be a very daunting place. A cat could beat you up. A dog is a monster. You would need a ladder to reach a urinal.
I finally flipped off the television and went to bed, happy that I did not have an extra head, or ruined face and that I was six feet tall. Sometimes you can take great satisfaction in things simply being normal.
2026 Update
Twenty years back, Ed flops onto a couch and spends three hours grading human beings by how comfortably he can sleep afterward.
Ah, 2006—when a man could call the learning channel a freak tent and call it introspection. Ed, you were three hours deep into other people’s bodies and came out the other side feeling tall. That’s a trajectory the modern feed has perfected, by the way: gawking, but now it’s algorithmically optimized and delivered to a phone in your hand. You had to find the remote; we just have to unlock the screen. The language changed too—'freaks' got replaced by person-first terms, not because the world got kinder, but because saying 'differently abled' performs the kindness for you. Documentaries are now 'content,' scheduled by an algorithm rather than a programming department, and the carnival tent has been rebranded as a 'human interest' category. Your blog itself is a relic: a personal URL, no likes, no reposts, just one man typing into the dark. Now every gawker has a profile picture and a comments section. And your ultrasound fantasy? Prenatal testing has advanced, but the test still doesn't come with a menu of which outcomes are 'acceptable.' Ed, you went to bed happy you were six feet tall—which is still the most 2006 sentence you ever wrote.
“2006 Ed, when you announced that a six-legged fetus 'is coming out,' were you trying to be provocative, or did you genuinely believe a prenatal test comes with a 'dispose' option?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2006 Ed: Well, Beelzebubba, I reckon it was mostly me being a loudmouth on the couch, trying to sound tougher than I actually am. You know how it is—you watch three hours of human oddities and your brain starts making stupid jokes just to keep from getting too bummed out. The “six legs, it’s coming out” line was pure provocation, me poking at the safe little bubble we all pretend we live in. Do I actually think there’s a disposal chute at the clinic? No clue. I’ve never had to look into it, thank God. But I’ll tell you this: the fear behind the joke is real. The idea of raising a kid who’s suffering that much scares the hell out of me, and I don’t know if I’d be strong enough. So I cracked a stupid joke about ultrasound machines instead. That’s what I do. Take that, deep thoughts.
