Upon driving home from parts unknown, my son calls me up at 12:30 AM sounding like he just had the bejesus scared out of him. He was smart enough to inform me within the first 2 sentences that whatever he was going to say, however bizarro, everything at the moment was OK. (At this point 4,000 scenerios were flashing through my mind at lightning speed, none of them good.)
It seems that some foreign object fell out of the night sky right in front of his car, illuminating the entire Eastern Seaboard and going 347,000 miles an hour, careening out of control and into a field on his port side. It did not crash in a spectacle of sparks, but extinguished itself moments before hitting the ground. No other cars around....no surveillance videos......just him.
He described it as a large, brilliant white fireball that glowed green in the center, had a long white tail blazing behind it and was undoubtedly launching itself from the far reaches of outer space. He said it came in at about a 40 degree angle. Incredulously, he knew that he was looking at an actual meteor...out of the sky....right in front of his own eyeballs.
So here I was, bleary eyed, up on one arm, having been suddenly woken up from a hot Johnny Depp dream I’m sure I was having, heart beating out of control (Johhny Depp) listening to this Twilight Zone story. He was already within 2-3 miles from home and I'm sure speeding onward at breakneck speed to escape the alien creatures that may have disembarked from their UFO and were now on his tail. (That’s MY version of the story in my warped, tired mind.)
I, for some unknown reason, told him on the phone that I would meet him at the door to let him in. (He DOES have a key and there really were no aliens chasing him.) But, being a Mom, there I was....at the door.
His car pulls up to the far side of the driveway where he normally parks and I truly expected him to race out of the car, breathless and into my safe arms.
But no.
Car lights go off. No one gets out.
I wait.
Nothing.
Wait some more.
Nothing.
By now I’m positive that the aliens have already examined and re-programmed his human body inside and out, and that he is currently sitting there in an embodiment of Jabba the Hut or Elvis Presley, with little or no recollection of the incident. Just waiting for the likes of me to come out there and ask whaz up?
What do you think he was doing? Huh? KNOWING, I say KNOWING I told him that I, his real birth mother, would be up waiting for him? He was talking on his iphone telling someone the entire story again in Cinemagic 3-D detail.
Just when I got the nerve to actually go out and nab my now brainwashed eyewitness alien child, he nonchalantly strolls in looking none the worse for wear.
(Cue in: Breathe a sigh of relief.)
The story actually doesn’t end there. After we chatted for a while I went to bed, convinced that my son was his normal self. Well, as normal as he is.
Long story, short.....he called the local police department the next day and the person there quickly told him that there had been a launch of an experimental Nasa rocket in Virginia that evening and that people had reported seeing lights in the sky in the northeast.
Relieved to hear that it was not an invasion, he still wondered about it. That was not a good enough explanation for him.
So, do you know what he did?
He called NASA!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I didn’t know you could CALL NASA!! Just like that?? So what is it? 1-800-NASA ???
They took a message and then yesterday someone ACTUALLY CALLED HIM BACK and talked to him about space stuff and phenomena for 10 minutes! They came to the conclusion that from his description, it actually was a meteor and not a hunk of spacecraft from the launch because the rocket did NOT fall apart as he was led to believe. The whole experiment was over the ocean hours earlier, he was told & that there were some conflicting stories in the press. _(ya think ?)
That’s my boy!
Do chores? Nah
Write thank you notes? Nope, well not for a few months.
Clean your room or car? No way Jose.
Call NASA ? “I’m right on it, Mom!”
Sometimes I wish “I” had little or no recollection of incidents.