For $1000 a company called 23andMe will tell you the secrets encoded in your genes. Like whether you're at higher risk for diabetes or losing the lottery every week for fourteen years in a row. The process is a lot like astrology, only no one asks you "What's your sign?"

All you have to do is spit in a vial, Fed Ex it to California, and pray that Homeland Security doesn't come knocking on your door. Let me get this straight - you can't take 5 ounces of mouthwash on plane, but you can send saliva through the mail? Does the TSA know about this?

Reason #1: It's too much work. According to an article I read in an actual magazine (which makes it much more likely to be true than if I'd read it, say, on the Internet or tattooed on the back of the neck of the guy in front of me at the grocery store ) it takes about ten minutes to fill the 2.5-milliliter vial that has to be shipped back to 23andMe. That seems like too much time. I think I could drool faster than that if you handed me a nice photo of Antonio Banderas, for example. But if ten minutes is the average, I don't want to have anything to do with it. I don't have ten minutes to spend salivating when there are columns to write and dogs to entertain with the laser light. I'm a busy woman - if you can't do my DNA test with a quick Q-tip swab to the cheek like they do on TV, then step aside.

Reason #2: I really don't want to know what's going on in my body. I also don't want to see tofu sausage being made or ride along with tornado hunters to see what it's really like in the eye of the storm. I'm happy just watching a show on the Discovery Channel and leaving well enough alone. It's bad enough I have to have a colonoscopy in a few weeks. But you can believe me when I say that if offered a choice between watching a camera snake through my innards or watching Sean Hannity rail on and on about Hillary Clinton, I'll choose the latter. That's how much I don't want to see what's going on inside me.

Besides, what good would it do to know that I'm carrying some rare gene that increases my chances of developing Jumping Frenchmen of Maine disorder (a disease that causes highly exaggerated startle reflexes and a tendency to leap about wildly, whooping and flailing one's elbows when frightened)? How would I change my life? Wear ankle weights and avoid news reports of any kind? Or what if the test showed I was highly likely to come down with Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia (the fear of long words)? How hard would life be as a writer if I could only use one syllable words? "That day, Sue took the right turn when she could have gone left. So the truck hit her. Twice. It was sad." You try it - it's not as easy as it looks.

Reason #3: I'm fairly certain I wouldn't be able to resist the temptation to fill the vial with dog slobber. Even though this would take more than ten minutes, because my dogs are not big slobberers and I'd have to drive down to my friend's doggy day care center and find a Bassett Hound or a Mastiff or another drooly breed. But it would be so worth it to have the test come back telling me my chances of catching a squirrel were 48%.

Reason #4: I can't imagine handing over a package of my spit to the Fed Ex guy without having a giggle fit. "There aren't any toxic chemicals in here, are there?" he'd ask and I'd fall down laughing, wondering whether the Margaritas I had at lunch would classify.

I'm sure there are lots of people who will embrace this new medical technology with open arms and open mouths. And perhaps one day the test will be cheaper and available at the drugstore next to the pregnancy tests and the kits to tell if your kids are on drugs or they just hate you naturally. And maybe by then I'll have grown up a little and be able to resist both laughing fits and doggy pranks. Still, I'm not going to be spitting into a vial any time soon. At least not according to my horoscope.

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