Conditional Immunity

Once a month my wife gets PMS. She hates it and, frankly, it irritates the shit out of me because I have to make adjustments to accommodate her “new” mood. Yeah, I know, poor me, right? But think about it: it’s a bait-and-switch in that suddenly there is a new personality in the house. But I recently got a peek at the clockwork behind that crazy shit. One of her symptoms is that she has extremely vivid dreams at night, and she was telling me about her latest.

“My brother and I were driving, and a nuclear bomb had just gone off. We could see the mushroom cloud, and the radio was saying we had to get off the road…”

“What about the EMP?”

“The what?”

“The EMP, electro-magnetic pulse; a nuclear explosion sets off a huge pulse that instantly fries transistors, the car would die and so would the radio.” I think sometimes I’m a real treat to live with.

“There wasn’t one; I’ll try and work on that for my next dream so it will be more realistic. Anyway, the radio was telling us we had to get our nuclear protection blankets out and get under them.”

“You mean the lead blanket you always keep in your car?”

“Yeah, that’s the one. But I couldn’t get it out fast enough, and people were screaming and dying all around me, and my skin was on fire. I could actually feel it burning and see it curling up, all black and papery. And then the dream got worse.”

“Worse than nuclear war?”

“Yeah, James (our 4 year old) was in the trunk, and I was trying to explain to him that we only had a couple hours to live and…”

“FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WOMAN, ENOUGH! I can’t listen to anymore of this! You dream this shit every month? How the hell do you even drag yourself out of bed? Jesus, I think I’m retaining water just from hearing about that fucking dream!”

“I know, it sucks to wake up…what do mean ‘drag yourself out of bed’? Are you saying I’m fat!? You are, aren’t you?” Runs from the room, sobbing hysterically.

Everything in nature has a purpose, right? Flies get rid of carrion, bees pollinate, deer keep auto body shops in business, and the “cycle” cleans out the uterus to prepare it for egg-installation. Is the prior week’s insanity supposed drive away potential suitors in advance of the imminent spring cleaning? Trust me on this one, I doubt it. Rather, I think that because this is something that has evolved over thousands of years, and until recently humans were living off the land (so to speak), the purpose of PMS is to scare away bears and shit. That’s why you never hear of crazy people getting eaten by bears. Stupid people, yes; but not certifiable nutjobs. It’s kind of like the reasoning of the protagonist in Camus’ The Plague: he reasoned that since one never hears of somebody with, say, terminal cancer getting killed in a car accident, there was an aura of protection that extended to him (as he was sentenced to be executed), granting him immunity from the plague. Same thing with crazy nuts/PMS-ing women vis-à-vis bears. And shit.

Allright, another mystery solved. Back to the books.

The perfect crime

To commit the perfect murder:

1. Find a stranger - the police investigation always starts with acquaintences of the victim.

2. Lure the stranger to the desert.

3. Stab the victim with large icicle. Has to be large, about 2 feet long, 1 inch circumference, because icicles don't lend themselves to repeated stabbings. This will leave a hole big enough to get the job done.

4. Leave the crime scene - very important.

The icicle will melt in the desert sun, disposing of the murder weapon and your fingerprints. Since the human body is mostly water, the little bit that makes up the icicle (or as I call it, the perfect engine of destruction) won't significantly add to the total amount. Sometimes simplicity equals perfection.

Caution: do not use in northern latitudes; also, be careful harvesting icicle, those things can put your eye out.