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Like a virgin

CHUCK BROWN
OUT THERE

There is a reason that the curator of lower vertebrates and invertebrates at the Chester Zoo in England is smiling these days and I can almost guarantee you it has nothing to do with him landing a date by telling a girl that he’s a curator of lower vertebrates and invertebrates.
No, the curator is smiling because he has witnessed a true miracle - the birth of five Komodo dragons to a mother Komodo dragon who, like most curators of lower vertebrates and invertebrates, has never had sex. Yes, Flora, the Komodo dragon, is now both a mother and father after she, or he, became pregnant without ever being exposed to the opposite sex. Scientists say the so-called virgin birth is a kind of miracle and an evolutionary breakthrough and, after reading about it, I can only think of one word to describe this truly memorable event in Komodo dragon history - “Ewww.”
The really exciting part of the virgin birth of baby Komodo dragons is that this mateless breeding could ensure the survival of the world’s largest lizard. There are fewer than 4,000 Komodo dragons left in the wild and breeding is a challenge because, well, even a lizard looks at another lizard and thinks, “Oh. Oh, no, he’s coming over here. I wouldn’t hook up with him if he was one of the last 4,000 Komodos on Earth.”
Scientists are now holding out hope that other species will look to Flora for inspiration and teach themselves how to also get pregnant and have babies without having a partner. I think I speak for most of humankind when I express my own hopes for the power of self-fertilization - “Dear Lord, please don’t let Lindsay Lohan find out about this.”
And what about the babies? Do they even have a chance of growing up without having to endure the cold, cruel taunts of all the other Komodos, the ones who were born in a nurturing environment in which a Daddy dragon and Mommy dragon, who love each other very much, get together to make lizard eggs then, through a miracle of nature, only eat some of them.
Flora’s lizard babies, so far, have had no such threats. They are reportedly healthy and enjoying a diet of crickets and locusts - a characteristic that makes me wonder if, in fact, there is a father in the picture (I’m looking at you, Trump).
But another remarkable thing about the Komodo dragons is this: You are reading about them in this column and there has been no connection whatsoever made to the Super Bowl. This truly is a miracle because almost every other article in every other newspaper in the Western Hemisphere and the non-sissy parts of Europe is tied, somehow, to tomorrow’s football game. Even the food columns will be full of elaborate Super Bowl recipes which, and I can only speak for everyone in the world here, will be reduced to, “Open chip bag; crunch; repeat.”
Yes, Super Bowl X-something-something-something takes place in Miami tomorrow and unless something truly extraordinary happens - say, the moon breaks free of its orbit and crashes into Tom Brady - the game will attract about 90 million Americans to CBS or roughly 89,999,983 more viewers than Grease: You’re the One That I Want over on NBC.
What those 90 million viewers will see is several hours worth of extremely humourous and clever commercials interrupted sporadically by Prince and, more sporadically, by some men playing football. And according to a survey that I may or may not be making up, most of those viewers will have some sort of wager on the game. Some people will simply bet on who will win or lose (SPOILER ALERT: The Bears) while others, such as Janet Gretzky, could bet several thousand dollars on whether the opening coin toss will end up heads or tails. By the way, I am taking just for fun wager that Prince will open the half-time show with Let’s Go Crazy. These are just for fun wagers, which, if I haven’t already stated clearly, are just for fun.