Fight Or Flight

Well, I woke up SCREAMING MY HEAD OFF again this morning...

Will, the dogs, the birds, the neighbors, everybody's used to it.

Some of you may remember, Will punches in his sleep and I scream.

I have nightmares at least twice a week. Will would probably say that it's twice a week that I DON'T have nightmares.

I wake up screaming so often that I've actually heard Will roll over and say, "Jesus Christ, will you just knock it off already??"

And then we usually get into an argument, because I'm half-awake, still terrified because I've just battled some alien or evil ghost or Barbara Walters and he's being insensitive by being so irritated with me. Like I WANT to have nightmares and wake up screaming.

So anyway, this morning, this real bugger of an alien (he was a mean fucker) was causing ALL KINDS OF TROUBLE. And we kept trying to catch him. And when I say "trouble", I don't mean that he was just rude and elusive. He was MORE than that. But, I can't really explain how he was more than that. It wasn't like he was destroying property or kidnapping people or animals, but he was REALLY irritating. You're just going to have to take my word on this one. This alien was a REAL asshole, okay?

And he drove a little silver Mazda.

So, all these people kept seeing him, but none of us did together at the sametime. And everyone kept agreeing; he was an asshole. Or she was an asshole. IT...IT was an asshole.

Well, all of a sudden, I was standing at the backdoor of my parents' home in Ohio (where I grew up) and I was standing with a friend who was a combination of my oldest friend's husband and her ex-husband (I like them both). So, he started raising the garage door and the alien came peeling up the driveway in his little silver Mazda, drove RIGHT UNDER my parent's piece of shit car, and the friend lowered the garage door, trapping the alien and exclaimed; "GOTCHA!!" And then went running out there.

I watched frozen from the patio and as the garage door started to rise, my friend was peering under my parent's piece of shit looking for the alien and his silver Mazda. AND THEN, he started screaming and running away from the garage. That's when I took off running down there RIGHT TOWARDS that asshole alien who was now running out of the garage towards my friend. I was going to meet this bastard HEAD ON.

I remember thinking, OH, NO YOU DON'T, YOU OVER-AGGRESSIVE GREEN DICKHEAD!! BRING IT, BITCH!! (I was like Sigourney Fuckin'-Weaver - but without the whole mechanical get-up...and my hair's longer...and I wasn't all greasy and sweaty...and I don't have a vagina) as I ran and then I started SCREAMING my battle cry, which then woke me up.

I laid there in bed all wrapped up in the sheets, sweating with the dogs' bodies pressed against me thinking what a jackass that alien was and how LUCKY he was that I woke up.

I stumbled out into the kitchen in my underwear (still half-expecting to see the alien helping himself to toast), to get some coffee and Will was watching the morning news. I asked him if he heard me scream. He motioned his head yes, as though OF COURSE I HEARD YOU SCREAM.

Then, Will came into the kitchen to get more coffee and I began telling him what I was dreaming about. And I told him all exasperated; "That asshole was driving a silver Mazda!"

Will looked at me like I was completely insane. And he said, "Why is it that you're always dreaming about evil ghosts or aliens?"

It didn't and it doesn't seem all that out of the ordinary to dream about evil ghosts or crazed asshole aliens, does it? I mean, they DO write frightening books and scary movies about both. Do they not? Okay, maybe not the whole silver Mazda part, but the rest, right?

When I scream during my nightmares, in actuality, it's NEVER a tough; "BRING IT, FUCKER!" kind of scream, it's inevitably a wounded 10 year old Vienna choir boy cry; "WWOOOOOO!!!", which is completely humiliating. So, in defense of my manhood I said, "Hey, at least I'm always running TOWARDS the evil ghost or psycho alien screaming my battle cry! Not AWAY from them! See? That's a good sign, isn't it? Isn't it good that I'm running TOWARDS them, Will?...You know, like I'm gonna fuck 'em up?"

Will skeptically inquired, "How are you gonna 'fuck up' an evil ghost or an alien?"

And determinedly I replied, "I DON'T KNOW...But, at least it seems like I'm going to TRY!"

Because we should all remember, no matter what it is that we're up against;

IT'S NOT THE SIZE OF THE DOG IN THE FIGHT, IT'S THE SIZE OF THE FIGHT IN THE DOG.

Even if that dog screams like a wounded 10 year old Vienna Choir boy.