Why Do So Many of the World's Children in Need of Adoption Have to be so... Genetically Suited for Sunny Weather?
By: Kimberly Miller

After a long, harrowing trial of trying to get pregnant the traditional way, and a couple of less traditional ways after my husband and I began to suspect that maybe we were doing it wrong, I recently became aware of the sad fact that I cannot have children of my own and began looking into adoption as an alternative means of building a family.

Unfortunately, after many hours spent scouring file after file of orphans from here to Timbuktu, it appears that the only children in the world in need of a good, loving home are... more genetically suited for sunny weather.

Naturally this wouldn't be a problem if I lived in Los Angeles or the more southern parts of Michigan where the warmer climate is more conducive to their particular pedigree, but it's rather chilly in my neck of the upper peninsula for the majority of the year, and I'm simply not that selfish.

Seriously, just as I wouldn't adopt a Siberian Husky if I lived in a studio apartment in Phoenix, I couldn't adopt a child whose teeth would chatter incessantly throughout the long, bitter wolverine winters, and whose genetically-disposed-for-more-equatorial-weather skin would clash in such contrast with the snowdrifts that he'd be easy pickings for hungry bears or roaming packs of wolves five months out of the year.

Just the thought of it gives me the shivers.

Then there are the social incompatabilities. For example, there are a lot of sports related teams and various extracurricular organizations the parents in my community encourage their children to join, including a club for young deer hunters, but people around here tend to frown upon the kind of clubs that are dedicated to shooting people and selling drugs.

And I'm no art critic, but I know the home owners association wouldn't be too keen on having all the houses in the neighborhood sprayed up with graffiti.

Oh God, whose pregnant, non-sunny weather suited belly do I have to open to get my hands on a white baby?