What the hell is going on in the Far East? First there are red glowing dogs in South Korea (Ruppys) and now there are green glowing monkeys in Japan. What are these - -designer animals? The Japanese scientists introduced the gene of a jellyfish to the embryos of five Marmosets and four of the five glowed green. Now, one of the green glowing monkeys has fathered a baby that also glows green. The motivation behind this glowing critter phenomenon is serious: incurable Disease. Scientists believe they can better study diseases such as Parkinson’s and ALS. The researchers can track toxins, illuminate tumors and monitor genes as they turn on and off.

But to tell you the truth, this is a little weird. These Marmosets reach sexual maturity in only a year. This means that they will rapidly reproduce; rapidly. Now, you have to do something with all those critters eventually. And the only thing I can think of is that if this trend continues our zoos are going to look like a box of radioactive animal crackers. Need to break your husband of that drinking habit? Get him drunk and then take him to see the pink elephants.

God, this could be worse than beanie babies. People at flea markets trading different color Gerbils, fighting at Wal-Mart over the last plaid Hamster. Whoopee! Now Pet Smart can turn their lights off at night and still get customers. Or give Grandma that blue cat to go with her hair. Need a cheap neon sign? Just gather a bunch of garden snakes of various colors and staple ‘em to a piece of plywood and voila!

And Close Encounters? Imagine one of these little critters walking into your campsite in the middle of the night. Holy Christ that’d clear it out at light speed! Little green men indeed. On the other hand, you could re-make all 500 Planet of the Apes movies with a lot more believability:

“Uh, why do you guys glow green in the dark?”

“What do you think stupid human?”

“Uh, radiation poisoning from the last atomic war we started?”

“He can be taught!”

I’m all for the research, so if this is a help by all means they should do it. I just can’t help but think about the “Law of Unintended Consequences” though. Eventually, this will spill over into our food supply.

“Hi Bob. Glad you could make it to our cook out! What color steak you want?”

And the boon to food producers at holidays! Red, white and blue hot dogs for the 4^th of July,an orange turkey at Thanksgiving and a green ham at Christmas! Leftovers at Christmas? No problem! Have a Dr. Seuss breakfast with Green eggs. Although, you’ll never be able to read that book for your kids at bedtime again because they will say, “What’s so funny about that?” And for those of you that don’t like all the fuss at Easter, you never have to color eggs again.

Of course, storing all this food would be kind of creepy. Go into the kitchen for a midnight snack and your fridge and cabinets are glowing various colors. Add to that your blue cat chasing the green mice and you have a recipe for disaster if you do drugs. On the upside you would never have to change the light bulb in the fridge again.

Anyway, as I said before I just worry about the unintended consequences of our actions. If this does become a problem, how are we ever going to get this monkey off our backs?