The Legend of the Omnipod - a silly text exercise
Today is English writing day for me. I love being able to at least write in one foreign language, and often I have just more fun doing it, than staying in my native German. The silly text that follows was inspired by a word, that caught my attention. The word is “Omnipod” and what a lovely word it is! Actually it is the name of an insulin pump, a very useful tool for sufferers of Diabetes Type 1. But that name says so much more, doesn’t it? Well, I felt inspired 😉
Writing silly texts can be amazingly fun and I recommend it wholeheartedly. To share them with friends is even better 😊.
Exercise: Try to find a mysterious word (or misinterpret a common word intentionally) and write a silly, but serious sounding explanatory text about it!
You can find word examples in English and German at the end of the following text. Have fun!
The Legend of the Omnipod
When it comes to the mysterious Omnipod, there are a lot of misconceptions out there and it seems, that the more we know about the Omnipod, the less we understand. One of the main reasons for that is that Omnipod isn’t the name of just one creature but three fairly different ones. The tales of them got mixed up a lot in the past and it was some hard research necessary to entangle the mystery.
The first incarnation of the Omnipod that springs into the mind of modern people when hearing the name is probably Omnipod, the God, as depicted most famously in Monty Python’s Flying Circus. In this context the Omnipod is pictured as the almighty foot that has the great power to end sketches, that are going nowhere, or ending the whole program. In its almightiness it seems clear to the viewer that the program can only exist as long as the Omnipod lets it exist, therefore leading to the feeling that the Omnipod is the only important viewer, its satisfaction the only goal, and that we in our role as unimportant viewers exist ourselves only in the merci of the Omnipod, that we are nothing but silly worms in its world under its rule.
Of course this depiction comes straight from the religious believes of the people of ancient Kodidolos, where the Omnipod was an almighty force – even mightier than Zeus himself. “The Omnipod is there upon us and beneath us, it is all that is and was and ever will be”, says the famous inscription, that the Kodidolossis wrote on the gate of their once majestic capital Kodidolopolis. “We all exist in the merci of the Omnipod” – a grim belief, when you think of the tragic fate of the Kodidolos Islands, that exploded in a giant vulcanic eruption. As a great historian of the Hellenistic times wrote: “Eradicated as if the Omnipod itself has stepped on it.”
But then there is Omnipod, the mystic creature, that pops up in fairy tales and legends – a glorious beast of great power and wit. In this legends the Omnipod is a creature of the mountains and the woodlands and when it crosses path with a wanderer it will test that adventurer – and the adventurer better be prepared. In Slavic Folklore Omnipods or omnipodičky can be seen as a philosophical hurdle the wanderer has to take in order to get to his or her goal. The Omnipod will challenge the motives of the journey and if protagonists are not strong enough, they can be trapped forever in the Omnipod’s world, where everything is doubted all of the time (that is, why it is believed, that in the old ages “he/she is trapped in an Omnipod’s dream” was a term that referred to people suffering from depression – today only the relict of podhead or pothead remained and shifted its meaning towards recreational drug users and the blurriness of their thoughts). In Japan the Omnipod found its way into pop culture through the medium of Manga. The Omunipoddo is a creature that follows you around in your own toilet slippers and quite annoyingly makes your everyday errands super stressful by commenting your every move. The Omunipoddo is often depicted with a variation of different feet from human to cat, from tanuki to horse, from giraffe to fish fin – everything in any number seems possible for the Omunipoddo.
In an old Austrian legend the Omnipod or Omnihax’n, as the locals sometimes refer to it, is a mighty beast with hooves and claws and paws, that if sighted by mountaineers high up a mountain is a symbol of soon hitting death by avalanche, fall or Omnipod-attack.
But there is also a really exciting real creatures that roams our earth and wears the name Omnipod. And it might be more mysterious than the God and the legend combined. The omnipod lives in the sea and looks like a relative of the octopus. Like its cousin, the omnipod has immense brain power, is very curious and enjoys crawling on land every now and then. Whilst in the water omnipods usually have four arms and two fins, making them faster than octopuses, when it comes to swimming. But scientists also found omnipods with three fins and five arms, some had only one fin and three octopus like arms and others ran around with one or two crablike looking claws. Initially the scientist had thought, that those were all separate species, but no! The omnipod is the only creature known to be able to swab feet. This unique feature still puzzles scientist and not that long ago it got even weirder and more mystery was added to this strange beast. When omnipods go on land, they usually form out two, four or six pairs of crab like legs to walk around – how they do that, is not known yet. But the weirdest part of it is, that those fresh formed legs harden up really quickly before their usually nightly beach walk. They get stiff enough to support the omnipods body for its journey. But when they go back to the water, their hard legs will suddenly go soft again, letting them smoothly move away from the shore, turning into arms, tentacles or fin like forms again, just as the omnipod pleases. This is a remarkable feature, unique to this strange, but majestic creatures. Not any other animal has been found yet to be also able to do such a trick, and for the gentlemen out there raising their hands with a grin now – you show us, how you walk on it unsupported by other limbs first, then we can talk about changing the record of the mind blowingly awesome omnipod. Whilst urban legends like the shoe-, smart phone- and teenager-eating Terror Omnipod of L.A. (as depicted in the horror movie of the same name) is a complete fantasy, biotechnical engineers hope, that they will soon be able to learn from the omnipod in order to revolutionize protheses, stair lifts, public transportation. Medical professions hope to find cures for conditions like restless leg sydrom, wobbly walk or football related boredom.
I hope, I could bring some light into this very complicated and often wrongly reported topic. Let’s save the oceans to save the omnipods.
Omnipods – teaching us how to foot for a better tomorrow.
If you want to do this exercise, you can also pick one of these terms, if you like: The Seaborn Beast; The Stubbhead-Frogeater; The Humpback Forest; The Cave of Sudden Birthdays; Longbrain, the Elder; The falling bridge model; The burning lighthouse problem
Und für deutsch schreibende Schreiberlinge: Die Grauenzahn-Höhlen von Untergurgl; die Bartwächter-Vereinigung; Königin Kordana, die Mauern-Vernichterin; Elefantennasen-Hasen; der Kult der Allköchin; Rübenkralle
