Messages from the Mothership

I was on the phone with my mom the other night bragging (again) about my husband's meat roast. It was a fabulous affair.

When it came time to do the dishes I, of course, feigned a dire bathroom emergency and excused myself. As karmic punishment, God smote me with a silver-white hair right in the middle of my head.

And when I say "silver-white", I cannot stress enough how white it really was. It was neon white, bright hollywood-smile-white, white like a glowing hot iron poker. It was white like a white sand beach in the sun, a pristine new china plate, white like teeth under a black light. It effervesced whiteness. I even turned off the light to see if I could see it and I swear it was glowing in the dim light of my tiny little bathroom.

When I turned the light back on it waved as if to get my attention. And as if it wasn't noticeable enough with all its white glowing-whiteness it also stood straight up and curled at the top like a big question mark as if asking, "How old are you exactly?"

My answer, of course, was to get out a tiny little pair of scissors and snip it down to nothingness. Except I think I cut out about ten other hairs accidentally before I finally got the major offender. I heard somewhere that if you pluck a gray hair three grow back in its place. I'm not sure what happens if you pluck a mutant, radioactive white hair. Maybe it instantly turns your whole head white. I didn't want to take the chance without looking it up on the Internet first.

I called my still-ailing mother to tell her we had made her a plate of food and would be delivering it to her and then told her about the fluorescent whiteness sprouting from my noggin. My mom is the one I get my full-bodied compassion from. In true form she laughed and said, "Oh ho!"

I described to her in full detail the very whiteness of this glowing beam of whiteness emanating my from follicles. In all her wisdom, she then revealed The Truth to me.

Mom: You need more zinc. You're zinc deficient. Are you taking a multivitamin?

Me: No. I have trouble swallowing them.

Mom: You should be taking a multivitamin. You should take liquid then. That's what your brother does. You need some B12.

Me: I took some of yours from the office. It made me too nervous.

Mom: That's not nerves, that's energy. You've been tired so long you don't even know what it feels like to have energy.

Me: If I take that B12 I'm going to have to take a Xanax to go with it.

Mom: Did you pluck that gray hair out?

Me: It was WHITE, not gray. Like really, really, REALLY WHITE. And it curled up like a weird mutant hair.

Mom: Like a pig bristle?

Me: Gross, no, not like a pig bristle. You're not spose to pluck them out because I heard a whole bunch grow back in. I don't know if that's true but I figured I shouldn't take the chance so I cut it off with the scissors.

Mom: You shouldn't have done that.

Me: Why not?

Mom: Because it was your Wisdom Hair.

Me: My Wisdom Hair?

Mom: Yes.

Me: And now I don't have one because I cut it off?

Mom: Yes.

Me: Great.

Mom: Actually, I think it was your antenna. It was there because you're supposed to be doing important things in this world, making it a better place. That was your antenna so you can get messages from the Mothership so you'll know what to do. And now you won't get the messages.

Me: I don't think it was working anyway.

Mom: Well, now you'll never know.