Pondering DNA

The gosh-darned stuff is everywhere.

Every time you brush your hair, touch a doorknob, drink out of a glass. You exchange DNA with everyone you shake hands with, everyone you kiss or hug, every baby you pick up and coochee-coo.

It is infinitely mind-blowing to me. I've left DNA in several foreign countries, countless shops and restaurants and definitely exchanged polite DNA with at least two husbands and several boyfriends.

And there is no way to stop shedding DNA all over the place, no matter how much you glove, sock, hairnet or pantyhose. It's there, on the steering wheel, the cabinet door, the nice, clean bath towel.

DNA is the rock-hard evidence that you have existed, you have been there, you have committed or not committed a crime. My mother's DNA is probably still in her old home, no matter how much cleaning has been done, because DNA doesn't ever go away. A random hair, a flake of skin or a bit of dried up spit carries that DNA forever and ever and beyond ever.

To a forensics practitioner, DNA is the holy grail of Who-Dun-It. If enough of your DNA shows up at a crime scene for some grisly, or not so grisly, murder investigation, you are gonna get a phone call to come down and meet Mr. Investigating Officer at one point or another.

It stuns the mind. For just as many thieves, bandits, rapists, murderers and perpetrators of other crimes have been caught using DNA evidence, there have probably been some sea turtles in the net, too, completely innocent of anything other than being a DNA slob at the crime scene. Fingerprints can be wiped clean, the weapons of crime erased, bodies be thrown into a chipper-shredder but DNA? Not even Windex gets rid of DNA.

Just something to ponder on this hot August morning.