Crop Circles, Mutilated Cattle, and Alien Possession in J. Panis St.

It takes a lot to make me cry. I say this dispassionately lest you take it as a challenge to push me down the stairs. It takes a lot to make me cry not because I relish pain but because we’ve had a very spartan upbringing. Yes, spartan, as in use-your-spear-if-you-want-your-next-meal spartan. I exaggerate, of course, but that’s not the point. The point is that I’ve had a very spartan upbringing, and this is why it takes a lot to make me cry.

I have always suspected this is one of the reasons the husband adores me. I am seldom moody. I don’t have a queasy stomach. I don’t faint at the sight of roaches, corpses, and blood. More importantly, I consider it cheating when couples calmly and methodically fight over an issue, and the woman dissolves into tears. I’m establishing the more sterling aspects of my character here because it’s the only way to demonstrate how perplexing Friday night had been for him.

I call him at 9:00 in the evening. "Please pick me up. JY."

He does. On the way home, he makes small talk but gets no response. Imagine his shock (and mine) when the waterwork started as soon as I sank into the sofa.

My diatribe, as faithfully as I can remember it: I’m tired! I’m bone-tired! I’ve never been this tired, and I hurt all over. But that’s not my problem. My problem is that I didn’t do physical work today, so I’m not supposed to hurt physically. But I do, and that’s strange, and I think it could only be because I’m stressed. I’m not supposed to be stressed. Do I look stressed to you? I think I am. No, I know I am, and because I’m stressed, I don’t even want to eat anymore. See? I don’t have an appetite, and you’ve no idea how sad, how frustrated this makes me because I really like what’s on the table. And now my feet ache, my hands ache, my neck aches. Everything aches - even my wrists and jaw. This is not right!

The husband looked at me as if I’d sprouted a second head. I clammed up, suddenly realizing how silly and strange the caterwauling was, and not at all certain I understood what I was weeping so copiously over.

I’ve stopped believing in parallel worlds, but just so you know, there are days I’m convinced aliens whiz past earth to make crop circles, mutilate cattle, and take over our faculties simply for the sheer hell of it.