Steve - it's a horror story for sure.

Billions of years ago, a particular combination of atoms fused into cells, with genes which fought with genes. These genes got carried by slime creatures -passed through several species with genetic twists and turns. Their carriers lived through ice ages, devastations, fires, floods, pestilences, wars, turmoil, tribulations, revolutions - to produce...:

Me.

(I'll get me double helix and leave now...)