Mitochondria

Mitochondria are the scum of the prokaryote (Greek: Without karaoke, referring to how primitive many single celled organisms are) world. They scrounge off us humans and we never get a word of thanks. I personally feel very insulted.

The average mitochondrion does no work, smokes twenty per day and just scrounges off our hardworking cells.

Mitochondria being difficult

The little guys always have to be difficult and they never do what we want them to. For example, they have their own DNA (this stands for "Don't Need Any", named after Darwin's favorite animal, the Unicorn. They decided that they could do perfectly well without DNA and destroyed theirs. Unfortunately, they realized too late that they did need DNA as a bargaining chip to get onto Noah's ark. Noah, who was permanently drunk, took the best bits of DNA from every animal he could find and made a super mammal who he called Chuck Norris. However, he hadn't counted on Chuck's insane martial arts prowess and got his arse kicked. Upset and hurt, he prayed to God who made a great flood and tried to drown Norris. Anyway, mitochondria having their own DNA may not seem like much, but to a self respecting human being like myself, it cuts like a knife. Mitochondria live within our cells and sit there quite happily, replicating of their own free will and generally having a party at our expense. It is their supply of DNA that allows them to do this. In my opinion, all mitochondria should have their DNA removed and given ASBOs.

But this isn't all. The little guys even take advantage of sex. Firstly, by this means they can spread themselves through the human population like a viral disease (such as James Blunt's song, 'You're Beautiful'). Secondly, they are in a perfect position (i.e. every cell in our body) to perv on us making out with our loved ones. I say send them back to where they belong, the metaphorical gutter!

The Origins of Mitochondria

Mitochondria, like every single other living thing, have evolved over millions of years from a basic replicating ancestor, who made copies of itself copies of itself who, in turn, made copies of themselves and possibly mutated. Those few with the favorable mutations would make more similar replicators. These gradually, with the help of a pinch of luck, evolved into prokaryotes, eukaryotes (Greek: 'With Kareoke'), viruses (Greek: 'Haha, suckers, you aren't even alive') etc.

This is, of course, unless you live in Kansas, in which case this didn't happen, doesn't happen and never will happen. In Kansas, a giant omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, omniintelligent, omnigaming, omnidoing, omnieating, omnisleeping, omniburping, omnifarting, omnimodelling, omnidicky, omnianswering-people's-prayers-sometimes-perhaps-but-only-if-they're-very-lucky God made everything from nothing. Which physicists say is impossible

However, with mitochondria, the story is a little different. Just as they were evolving into something interesting, they decided to take up yob culture. Evolutionarily speaking, this was quite advanced, as even humans couldn't do it for another couple of hundred million years. However, it was not good for all the other living organisms. All the eukaryotes were partying at a karaoke bar and the mitochondrial dudes understandably got jealous. In a mob of unruly ruffians (or as unruly as single-celled organisms can get), they gatecrashed the karaoke. The little eukaryotes were too busy to notice them (they're little buggers) and this made the mitochondria mad (they crave attention, rather like the X-Factor contestants) and to show how cross they were, they jumped up the anal passages of the eukaryotes and there they lived, happily feeding off anything they can find.

After that, evolution took its course (unless of course you are in Kansas, then refer above) and the eukaryotes evolved into multi-cellular organisms. The mitochondria however refused to leave, because inside cells they didn't have jobs to do and could just sit around living off the dole and watch television.

How to help the fight

Now you have heard about mitochondria and how they abuse us, you can help the fight against these cruel leeches. There are many ways you can do this and these are just a few:

• Write to your local MP and ask him to vote for the removal of mitochondria bill (voting takes place in May 2009). The more pressure we put on the government, the more likely they are to help rid us of these pests. However, labor actually SUPPORT mitochondria! They believe that these ragamuffins do us good! In their opinion, mitochondria give us "vital" ATP, required for us to live and if we got rid of them, we'd be dead in seconds. So remember kids, vote conservative and get rid of mitochondria!
• Whenever you see a mitochondrion in the street, kick him.
• Many of you never eat battery hen eggs and this is a good thing. But just take it one step further and don't buy any food that has been made with the help of mitochondria.
• Remove all of the mitochondria from your cells one by one with a small pair of tweezers. Do not do this if you only have five minutes, this takes at least a good half hour, but you will feel all the better (if slightly holey) once you are finished.
• Kill yourself. This will stop the mitochondria inside you replicating. Ha! That'll show them.
• Buy a flamethrower and flame the little buggers.