Just when it was within reach

BY DAVID COEHRS

I was nineteen when my sister and I went to a Linda Ronstadt concert together. We both loved her music, and I had the additional benefit of considering Linda a total knockout for whom I would have dropped everything to run away with, if only she had asked. At the concert she wore a tight pink shirt and microscopic pink and white spangled shorts that made me breathe funny. I wore a custom-made T-shirt that proclaimed "Dibs on Linda Ronstadt's Clone" because there was a lot of talk about cloning in the news and I figured I'd better get my dibs in early.

Then, just as Linda was probably realizing I am now a harmless, middle-aged frump and it's safe to finally give me her double, the Vatican went and ruined everything. Suddenly, one of the Pope's grouchy old archbishops declared that one of the "new sins" of the modern age is the hanky-panky going on in the world of bioethics, which includes cloning.

"There are areas where we absolutely must denounce some violations of the fundamental rights of human nature through experiments and genetic manipulation whose outcome is difficult to predict and control," he told L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper.

In other words, now I'll never get Linda Ronstadt's clone.

I won't deny it's a blow. Eons before I met my beloved I collected all of Linda's albums and played them religiously, and not entirely because her pouty photos on the covers made me hyperventilate. Now some bigwigs have vowed to stop cloning because they realize with horror it could theoretically produce hundreds more of Richard Simmons, which wrecks it for everybody.

Not that I'd ever trade in my wife for Linda. She understands about Linda and me the same way I understand about her unrequited love for a certain tall, 40-ish actor with a boyish face whose movies she pretends not to care a whit about when they show up on cable, although her eyes will perform incredible gymnastics to pretend they're focused elsewhere while staying glued to the screen.

I don't get the whole cloning controversy, anyway. I mean, sure, there are people who, when you see them acting like complete jerkwad ignoramuses, you comment under your breath, "Boy, I'm glad you don't have a twin."

NOTE: No, that is not a direct quote from my wife about me, and even if it is - which, I'm telling you, it might not be - she has to keep me, because we promised to stick it out for better or for worse, so even if she did say that, which, okay, is a distinct possibility, I don't want to talk about it.

I know at least a thousand people who might tell you differently (including my church pastor ever since that time I called him "Big Daddy"), but I don't think it would be such a bad thing to have fifty or sixty of me running around.

Sure, you could argue that even one more of me on the planet is a definite sign of the Apocalypse, but the world could do a lot worse. I happen to be acquainted with several very questionable characters whose typical behavior would have scared even Al Capone into adult diapers - and they're family members.

Scientists have already cloned some sheep and a few dogs and The Three Stooges (which explains Capitol Hill), so why not Linda? What possible harm could come from reproducing her so that she can give my wife and I private concerts in a tasteful cocktail dress? (The shorts would have to go - I'm married, not stupid.)

To be fair, I suppose I'd have to avoid a double standard and allow my beloved to get a clone of the 40-ish actor, whose movie debut, ironically, was as a complete dork. If his clone was offered to her, I know she'd smile prudently and say, "Oh no, I simply couldn't. I have my big, buff, handsome husband, and no one can compare to him, not even the movie actor I've had a crush on since my high school days, when I prayed he would ride a steed into my algebra class and declare, 'Enough torture of this gentle beauty! She is mine!' No, no, I couldn't possibly accept, unless, of course, you insisted, and then the old ball and chain would have to put on his big boy boxers and deal with it."

Of course, I'm saying all of that in good fun, because naturally she would never throw me over for a good-looking Hollywood actor clone who would make more money per minute than I've made over 30-odd years of pointless toil and sweat, and who could introduce her to other good-looking actors and take her to swanky parties where they serve Duck a L'orange and eveyone wears Giorgio and dances until 6 a.m. I'm almost positive she wouldn't do that - just about positive. Just about.

To be safe, I'm proclaiming that all dibs are off.