Recently, a capital plan was brought to my attention. To execute it, you’d have to be brilliant or insane.

I refer to becoming a test subject. If you play it right, you could make quite a bit of capital.

It might be better to be insane for that, actually.

Let me contextualize this by saying I wear glasses. Not in the photo accompanying this article, because in public I have perfect vision.

I haven’t walked into a stop sign in ages.

But say I wanted to correct my vision, if I needed to (which I don’t).

It turns out there are loads of scientists who would love to put people through their experiments if not for the minor nuisance of ethics.

But if you sign a few forms, that pesky thing goes away. And who says I have to read the forms if I didn’t bring my glasses, which I’ve already mentioned I don’t need?

Let’s say you decide to take part in an experiment. It doesn’t have to be vision-related.

You, noble individual, could help scientists discover something extraordinary, something that would make their bow ties spin around in amazement.

For example, you can help discover biomarkers (which are not a Crayola product).

Or you can get scientists to study your brain waves while you sleep, if you have any.

Or you can determine how many coconuts the average person can juggle on a unicycle.

Not riding the unicycle, with the unicycle. My theory is you can hit them into the air with the seat.

One of the above is not a real scientific experiment. I’m putting this disclaimer in for ethical reasons, though you probably won’t read it.

A few of these studies even pay. Not with a pat on the back and a spiel about your service to humanity, but with real dollars that you can spend on Crayola markers and coconuts.

Of course, that shouldn’t be the reason you — and here I mean you personally — go out to do those studies. You’re doing them to help humanity, aren’t you?

Leave the paying ones for your resident humor columnist.

We do need to do scientific tests on humans now and then. There are good reasons for this.

Just because we share most of our DNA with, say, bananas doesn’t mean a human being will respond the same way as a banana would to something.

For example, if I expose a banana to radiation in a lab, it will do nothing.

But if I do the same thing to a human, he’ll turn into the Hulk and throw me around like a rag doll.

And he might break my glasses (which I only wear as a fashion statement).

There must be some difference between the way a banana reacts to radiation and the way a human reacts to it.

Yet I can’t confirm this banana hypothesis without a scientific trial and a bajillion dollars in funding.

Would you be the one to stop me from serving humanity? Remember, I write for a newspaper. I don’t have that many opportunities.

You could help me. But if I were to conduct a trial to try to make humans into superheroes, I wouldn’t be able to spend money on paying you.

This is ethical because, in exchange, you wouldn’t be able to spend money on suing me.

It’s a perfectly fair arrangement. It’s top of the line as far as ethics is concerned.

Okay, so it may be a little below the line. But I’m not wearing glasses, all right?

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Copyright 2024 Alexandra Paskhaver, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Alexandra Paskhaver is a software engineer and writer. Both jobs require knowing where to stick semicolons, but she’s never quite; figured; it; out. For more information, check out her website at https://apaskhaver.github.io.