King for a minute - but even a king can't help the White Sox

For about a minute I was King of Ancient Egypt, the Main Man of Mesopotamia.

Then the Field Museum docent took my powers away.

Being a man of monumental concerns, I was going to use my juice to banish all Major League Baseball teams whose names end in the letter S or which are red teams, thereby giving the White Sox the repeat World Series title. Looks as if its the only way that’s going to happen.

Sure it was a petty wish, but I feel like I am one of the White Sox right now -- doing well, but not as well as I could be, not really making any progress against the Tigers, some Twins breathing down my neck (OK, that’s a wish, not a reality), underachieving, under appreciated, and with gas going to $4 a gallon signs of a bright future dimming with the August sun.

So it was nice to be the Sun King, if only because a kindly old lady talking about a very old, very heavy tomb took a shine to my bald head and anointed me, if only for demonstration purposes.

I learned that they had better paint way back before Jesus. And, as ruler of a desert empire, I could have somebody killed for merely stepping on my shadow. I thought it just meant six more weeks of winter.

While the above was in another of the myriad maze-y halls, I was at the Field to see the King Tut exhibit, which was a bit misleading as the famous sarcophagus death mask which was the hit of the show back in the 70s when Steve Martin wrote the song wasn’t along this time.

Still, all that was on display proved to me that as long as there has been civilization there have been yuppies. Perhaps the original conspicuous consumers, the ruling class of Egypt loved its goodies.

We also have them to thank for monotheism, and look how well that is turning out. Actually, Tut’s dad got rid of all the gods but the Sun Chip, probably to cut through the bullshit red tape and bureaucracy of polytheism, to say nothing of consolidating and tightening the reins of power - sort of like the Yankees try to do through free agency every season.

Tut’s dad died when the boy king was but nine years old and his uncles and the toy makers convinced him to bring back that old time religion, which, being nine, he did.

Tut - I bet he would have got teased a lot with a name like that, which looks even funnier in hieroglyphics. But being king has it perks, one big one, along with the “don’t tread on my shadow” policy being you can’t be ridiculed.

Which was good for Tut, who also apparently looked like Boy George, which, even in ancient times, was not thought of as handsome. The National Geographic types say Tut died when he was but 19, so maybe looks really can kill.

Actually they think he died from an infected broken leg. They ruled out the crushed vertebrae and ribs. Those were probably football injuries.

Tut took a lot of his stuff with him into the afterlife, because the Egyptians believed that bumper stick about he who has the most toys wins - in heaven, even.

I like that they put little dolls in the tombs, which were slaves for you in the hereafter, doing chores so you could just hang out with the Sun God at his pool. Little games went with, too, games made only for you in the dead zone.

Of course, your internal organs would be in their own golden coffins - but for your brain, which was removed through your nose, which sounds really messy.

But who needs a brain when your dead? You’re in a state of bliss, so you don’t need to think about anything.

Which is why I am surprised Hollywood chuckle heads like Madonna and Tom Cruise have yet to discover Egyptology. Maybe Helena Bonham Carter, who because her homeland in a small, incestuous island, must be an ancestor of the English archaeologist who rediscovered Tut’s tomb, could give them a talking to.

Or someone could slip them some Earth, Wind and Fire albums.