The Myth of Wile E

The Natural History Museum of the Future

In case you were wondering, Mama and Daddy, me, Dougie, Gladys, and even the Impala did eventually get out of the desert, and I did eventually get out of my pajamas, though not exactly in that order. Somewhere near Indio, I think (or was it Barstow?), I just got fed up with my pajamas, peeled them off, and threw them out the window. They landed on the side of the road like a molted skin, and are probably still there to this day. After all, except for a small hole under one armpit, they seemed pretty indestructible. If a natural disaster finally buries California, my pajamas may be fossilized for future generations to puzzle over, the way we now puzzle over the petrified remains of Pompeii. Something to think about when you buy your pajamas! They may one day end up in the Museum of Natural History as "Domiciliary Evening Attire of Typical Working-Class Male or Female Youth, circa late 20th century/early 21st century North American. Tribe: Migrant Westbound Fortune-Seeker."

If future museumgoers listen to the self-guided audio tour, they'll probably hear a deep-voiced actor describe "The . . . lure . . . of . . . the . . . WEST," and how all throughout history, people have been drawn to the west, wanting to know where the sun went at night, and believing that the sun left gold behind when it sank beneath the horizon. The deep-voiced actor might then direct museumgoers to some display cases up ahead, and remind them that they could pause the recording at any time.

And there in the display cases would be gold sun-disk artifacts and pieces of sun drawings from ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, India, China, and Africa. There would be gory dioramas of conquistadors slaying their way westward, and maybe even a bit of their loot: coins lying at the bottom of a case like dead goldfish in a dry aquarium. Adjoining galleries might showcase the drawings of toddlers, always with a big gold sun smiling over the horizon. And among the letters of gold prospectors, the diaries of Ellis Island immigrants who sailed west looking for streets of gold, and the photographs of starlets who went from rags to Oscars . . . among all those exalted artifacts, perhaps the gawkers of the future might find: my red footie pajamas.

Well, why not? History museums are full of such day-to-day items as wooden spoons, hair combs, and broken buttons.

To find immortality in Hollywood, you pretty much have to be young and beautiful; even then, the odds are long, and get longer with each birthday. That's why there are natural history museums; they're the second-chance drawing for the prize of fame! In museums you'll find the very old and mundane-whatever survives. You may not find Belleek, ice sculptures, Fabergé eggs, or silver nitrate film in the natural history museum of the future, but you will very likely find flight data recorders, Tupperware, and my tomato-red polyester-blend pajamas. Pajamas that I cast off like an empty cocoon as we drove into the sunset.