I ponder sending a swab of cheek saliva to ancestry.com to see if at some time in the long, long ago a male pelican passed on its DNA to one of my Russian-Jewish grandmothers. These things happen. It's not without precedent. Think "Leda and the Swan." Look, anyone who follows nature shows knows that unusual genetic modifications on otherwise stable chromosomes are no surprise to anthropologists. Nor are unsuitable couplings. Ask most children about their parents!
Another persuasive detail. Pelicans, I believe, are fond of herring. A nice piece of silvery herring is also a delicacy among the Russian-Jewish Babushkas from whose wombs I have descended and whose taste buds influence my table.
Anyway, back to my chin/neck. Perhaps I would not mind it so much if (unlike an appendix which is purely vestigal), science discovered an over-large, under-the-chin served a functional purpose. For example, if it stored extra brains.
Or, if over a series of severe Siberia winters this protuberance of protoplasm has evolved into and provided a survival advantage, as a kind of permanent neck wrap, or organically derived insulation.
As an aside, I am aware that pelicans are not usually found in polar regions. However, birds do fall out of formation, flocks go astray, there are exceptions.
To tell the truth, as an anatomic feature, my neck/chin uses a lot of body mass that might have more rightly gone into biceps. But, that's the quagmire of evolution. It's frustratingly slow. Ask me again in a hundred million years.
But, like me chin, I digress.
In a fit of passion, I once asked my husband if my chin turned him on, sort of like a third breast. Knowing he will say most anything to get me supine, I don't quite know how to interpret his choked answer. By the way, this was not an entirely ridiculous question, because as you may remember, pelicans are part of the order pelecaniformes, which also includes cormorants and boobies.
All these thoughts help explain this piece of flesh that has come unbidden to roost beneath my jaw, refuses to migrate or molt, or turn into a swan, or take wing, no matter how much I squawk.
