Boys will be boys
Lime-green avocados will be lime-green avocados. You've seen one tree, you've seen them all. The sentiments anticipated the reality of the great age of cloning.
The American Emperor Difluvian VII declared that all male children henceforth must carry his genome. And so they did. An entire generation was born with the bulbous nose, the horrific cross-eyed stare, the royal flatulence of Difluvian.
These boys were boys, yes indeedy. They got into trouble left and right. Now, I don't mean to imply genetic makeup equals destiny. To the contrary: Some boys played hooky from class to hit the watering hole, once they'd torn the concrete lining from the town pools, and let them get nice and muddy. Others dipped girls' pigtails in inkwells – finding ink was easy, convincing the young women to wear pigtails less so. Still others hotwired cars and went joyriding, crashing their way out of the museums of antique transportation. Best of all, bunches of little bulbous-nosed children snuck out at the first sign of winter weather to throw snowballs at all the adults walking by. Most of them bounced harmlessly off the adults' personal forcefields, but the sizzling sound they made was a hoot.
Finally, Difluvian realized the error of his ways and allowed boys to come out with all the mixmatched, crazy gene coding of the good old days. Still, to this day, the elder's scratch at their bulbous noses and, no matter the shenanigan or folly, intone wisely, "Boys will be boys."
Do unto others as you would have done to you
The phrilobox of Gryphon IV enjoys having its flesh torn forcefully free of the bone. It grows a new skin overnight, oft times a thicker one than the original.
No one knows the origins of the glittering diamond dogs. They’ve been a loyal companion of humanity ever since we joined the interstellar community. It enjoys being polished with sandpaper. Then, a fortuitous owner may have the privilege of etching his or her initials into the diamond dog’s hide.
The mutagenic popcornea like nothing better than having their eyes removed. After a good scratch of the socket, they pop ‘em right back in. The only trick is to do the scratch and return quickly. Else, the eye won’t fit right in the newly configured face, and the popcornea will be blind, until it mutates new sensory perceptions to compensate.
The first humans to breach the meeting halls of galactic civilization brought crude translatoboxes with them. They programmed them in galactic one with certain helpful phrases to ease their transition into a society whose rules they couldn’t begin to fathom. One of those phrases was a variant of the Golden Rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Through an error of syntax it was stated in the imperative rather than as a rule of thumb.
It was only through an accident of fortune that the first species they encountered was the Tailacious Bonestretchers rather than any of the folks listed above. Had it been otherwise, we might have returned to Earth, our tails between our legs, and never come out to play again.
