I always knew there was a purpose for

I always knew there was a purpose for the belly button but I never imagined it would be this.



I had spent years pondering the possibilities and had come up with nothing even though I’d tried every experiment I could think of.

My first experiment was to submerge it in water for long periods of time to see if there was any effect. When the water continued to lap quietly in the oversized Petri’s dish I’d created for the test, I surmised that the hole was not really a hole at all. Otherwise air would have passed through it from my regular breathing and caused bubbles to rise from its depths. It seemed to be nothing more than a fleshy cave.

Of course, caves were most useful for creating echoes so I decided to test its capacity for feedback. The biggest challenge for this experiment was my physical fitness. I had had to run for miles and stretch repeatedly for weeks until finally I could contort my body into a position acceptable for testing. Once conditioned I was able to spend 8 folded hours twisting my head back and forth to alternately yell and listen.

No echoes were produced.

It would seem that the soft tissue making up this tiny cave would simply absorb the sound of my strangled voice rather than repeat it back to me.

So it was not a simply a hole and it was not a very good cave.

Experiment number 121 proved no more successful than the others. Without substantial funding it was impossible to obtain the nuclear reactor required for proper testing. So I compromised and made a rudimentary appliance consisting of an unperforated egg and a reinforced microwave transmitter. The egg did not fit in my belly button and I could not squish my belly far enough into the frame of the transmitter so in the end I proved nothing. However, the egg did explode in spectacular fashion in several pleasing yoke-filled arcs. Though no belly button conclusions were drawn the event was nonetheless enjoyable.

As the months turned into years and the number of experiments climbed into the thousands I began to wonder if this tiny dugout was nothing more than a mere mistake of design. Or perhaps it was just that I was not the scientist to make this particular discovery. I’ll tell you the darkest days of a scientist’s life are the days when his hypothesis points at his own ineptness.

I had developed a rather nervous habit of clicking my teeth as I waited for my various button hypotheses over the years and as a result my teeth had begun to wear down. I had tried wearing a mouth guard but keeping it in while using my tweezers to maintain the lint-free status of my most prized possession proved a difficult task. So I had switched to gum instead as I found that it both cushioned the blow of my chattering teeth as well as gave a lovely burst of sweet grape to the rest of my rather disappointing day.

One day as I was preparing for a descent into a 6-foot tub of liquid nitrogen obtained from a rather dodgy farmer, I realized that my regular gumball was nowhere to be found. As disturbing as that was I also realized that I needed to continue with my experiment post haste as I could hear the faint sound of sirens in the distance. So, armed with not much more than a Speedo and a smile I leapt into the bubbling liquid.

When I awoke in the hospital flanked by two stone-faced officers, I realized how very violently my teeth were chattering. I needed gum badly but I dare not ask those now in my room. They seemed rather upset with me and I am sure it had something to do with the illegal chemical still dripping off me. It seemed that I was suffering from something akin to very serious frostbite and I couldn’t really feel much but the chattering in my mouth. I did, however, feel a tiny wiggle somewhere mid-me and looked down to see the most wonderful sight.

There, nestled in a perfectly sized home, was my lost gumball from this morning. And as I fished it out from it’s cozy nest and bit down with a smile I realized my whole life had led to this moment. The purpose of my belly button, the reason which I strived years to find, the use of the most unuseful part of me was known to me in that moment. My belly button’s express purpose was to keep my gumball warm.

And now, as was a certainty due to my nitrous exposure, I could die a happy man.