If I could build God like a teddy bear from one of those factories in the Mall, I wouldn’t make him in my image. No arms, no spine, no cock. He’d be a gob of lightning-web circulating around a purple orb of energy, whose only purpose is to make things nice for us. He would be intense but never violent. Just really concerned, like Mr. Belvedere. And educational, like Mr. Huxtable.

I would call him him because it sounds better and not because I’m misogynistic.

There wouldn’t be this crazy back-story full of holes about his younger days as a restless, destructive deity. You could ask him what happened to the dinosaurs but he would only waive you off, staring silently out of the window at a world he so indiscriminately crushed and rebuilt like Lego’s. Eventually you’d realize the past is the past and all that matters is the future.

He wouldn’t be angry at you for doing wrong. He would just expect you to do better next time. You may not improve right away, but the fear of disappointing him never lets you stop trying. Plus, pleasing him has its rewards, namely a soft little lightning bolt that reaches out to you and massages your scalp and rubs your back while you bask in his glory.

The world would still be full of terrorists, pedophiles and assholes. People would still shout at the heavens in confusion, How could you do this to us, which they would know why if they bothered to download the transcripts and liners of his yearly State Of The World address on sotw.gov. And even though the carefully chosen words laid out his natural reasoning of balance and utopian fallacy, the creed would still fall on the deaf ears of our “Me = Victim” society.

I’d also make God funny when he drinks, because so few people remain cordial in a blaze of sauce.

His SNL guest spots would be epic. His scotch would always be top shelf. Even his commercials would be entertaining. But the most important spec I would build in him: I would make him into a really cool dude.

You could ask him anything and he would tell you honestly because he knows that people grow best when fed truth and watered with support. If you were wasted, he’d float you and your car home safely. He would do anything for you, give anything to you, as long as you followed the simple rules he set that help make life gratifying for each individual.

My God would be so much better than all of the other gods being churned out at the factory store in my mall. After I built him and paid the angry teenager working the register, I would reward myself with a cheese steak and chocolate malt in the food court. Just God and I; he across the table in the Build-A-God box with the receipt stapled to it, and me with my beard full of crumbs and a destiny fulfilled. Two buddies at the beginning of an amazing journey.

It’s too bad I’d forget him in the theater when the movie let out.