Like all great men of superior intelligence, I spend an inordinate amount of time knee deep in deep contemplation. In other words, I spend a great deal of time sitting around thinking. And what, you might ask, does someone blessed with superior intelligence and a comfortable recliner sit and think about? Things, mostly, all sorts of things. You could say that I have taken it upon myself to be the Playdo of the nineties. What? Oh yes, true. Flat.

I sit and reflect on things like:

Why don’t my kids want anything to do with me until I close the bathroom door?

Why does my wife only need feminine hygiene products when I’m at the store?

Why is it that when you go to the mall with your hair all messed up and no makeup on you always run into an old boyfriend (my wife asked me to reflect on that)?

And finally, if you clone a schizophrenic, how many people would you get?

That last deep thought was stimulated by a story that appeared in the “Huntsville Times” last Sunday, a story headlined: “Headless Frogs, Human Questions.” From the headline, he didn’t know if he was going to read about mutated tadpoles in well water or a review of a new punk band. Turns out he was wrong on both counts. This is how the article began:

From the Associated Press: “British scientists have created a headless frog embryo, a technique that may lead to the production of headless human clones to grow organs for tissue transplantation.”

Being a man of superior intelligence, my initial reaction was: I wonder how these things croak? in leo

“Scientists believe the technique could be adapted to grow human organs such as hearts, kidneys and livers in an embryo sac that lives in an artificial womb.”

Second very clever thought: We can grow people but we can’t grow hair? And these guys call themselves scientists.

“People who need transplants could have organs ‘grown on demand’ from their own cloned cells.”

Incredibly smart third thought: I just discovered the next big franchise opportunity! Forget Domino’s, McDonald’s and Subway. I’m putting my money into Organs-R-Us! I wonder if they will have a drive-through?

“Can I take your order?”

“I need a kidney and lung order to go.”

“A kidney, lung side, yes sir. Do you want fries with that?”

The article was impressive enough, but not all there was fresh news. China recently announced that it will try to clone giant pandas to prevent them from becoming extinct. It turns out that pandas are an extremely demanding breed when it comes to birds and bees. Buy them dinner, a nice bottle of wine, put on some romantic music and still no dice. There are only two or three of these things left on earth. I don’t think they realize how narrow a field they have to play on.

The Chinese hope to be as successful as the scientists in Scotland who have cloned sheep and the scientists here in the United States who have cloned cows. Sheep and cows and panda bears, oh my! Not your most intelligent mammals, there. I guess they decided to start cloning from the bottom of the intelligence chain and work their way up.

So what’s next, pigs? Dogs? cats? Potato chips? Professional wrestlers? Dan Quayle? Me?

Although there is a law that prohibits the US government from officially sponsoring cloning experiments on humans (or, as my mom calls them, human beans), there is no law that prohibits commercial companies from attempting it. And you know they will. “Consumer cloning,” marketers will call it. Create your own customers and you will never run out of business.

I expect Xerox to be at the forefront of this new technology. After all, people have been photocopying their butts for years. It’s just a matter of pressing ENLARGE.

Before cloning becomes as simple as entering the desired number of copies and pressing a button, I think we should lay down some guidelines to reduce the number of “misclonings” that are bound to occur. The first thing we must do is draw up a master list of people who should not, under any circumstances, be cloned. I’ll get things started. Here is my top ten:

1. Kathy Lee Gifford (for poor Frank’s sake)
2. richard simmons
3. Dennis Rodman
4. Bill Clinton (think how much trouble two of these would be)
5. Kathy Lee again (really gets on my nerves, sorry)
6. Anyone who professes to be a rapper
7. Lawyers/Politicians/Criminals (this counts as one entry)
8. The Olson twins (singly or as a couple)
9. That obnoxious guy with the ponytail who sells heartbreakers on TV.
10. My Uncle Buddy, who shows up unannounced and then eats you out of the house before stinking up the bathroom and passing out on the couch.

Maybe when they fix the bugs I’ll have cloned myself. I could mow my lawn, go to work in my place, play with the kids, go to Wal-Mart with my wife, and hold her purse while she tries on shoes. On the other hand, I’d probably just want to sit in my recliner and think.

Maybe cloning isn’t such a great idea after all.