Just In Case Anyone Was Wondering How He Was

Yesterday afternoon I took off and drove down to Portland to see the new X-Files movie. If nothing else, I am a giant geek at heart, and I have loved the X-Files and its alien-monster-freak parade since it began.

If you were to ask me exactly when it was I realized I was hooked on the show, I would tell you it was that episode with the giant tape worm guy that made me say, "Okay, that's it. This show is seriously badass." That particular X-File was so horrifying and disgusting I refused to go into a Porta-Potty--which was a breeding ground for the giant tape worm guy--for a long time afterward. And even though I will now use one if I have to, I still give it some serious thought before I go in.

Anyway, it is my intense love for the show (and specifically Mulder) that inspired me to be one of the first people to see the movie on its opening day. And I'll say this about the movie: it would've been better if they'd let me write it. I appreciate what they were trying to do, and I appreciate the "twist" they gave us, but it could've been better if someone had given the dialogue a second thought.

But that's not really the point. The point is that afterward--after I'd spent an hour and a half thinking that if David Duchovny showed up at my door with that thick beard he was sporting through most of the movie, I'd rethink my policy on beards if he'd just come in and talk to me about psychic rats, about alien autopsies, about inbred killers, about parasitic twins--after all that, I called my mother. She was my X-Files partner for years. We'd park ourselves in front of the television and say things like, "Should we turn the lights on now? Should we? What do you think?" because we knew that if we watched certain episodes of the show with the lights off, there'd be no hope for sleep come bedtime. After extra creepy episodes, my mother would request we walk back-to-back down the hallway. We'd straighten up our shoulders, press our backs together, and scuttle down the hallway in quick half-steps that kept us glued together so that no ghosts or zombies or clones could get us.

After I saw the movie, I called my mother to rub it in. "Guess where I just waaaaas!" I sang into the phone when she answered.

"Where?" she said.

"Watching the X-Files mooooovie!"

"No fair!" my mother said. She grumbled and sighed. "I want to see it!"

I asked her what she was doing that night--I figured she could very well convince her boyfriend to take her out for a Friday night show.

"We're just taking grandpa back," my mother said. "We had dinner."

That meant my grandfather was in the car with my mother. That meant there was no way I was getting out of speaking to him. I sure tried though.

"Oh!" I said. "Well, I hope you guys had a nice dinner. I'll let you go. I'm on my way to the mall. I'm almost there."

"Okay," my mother said. "Well, here. Talk to your grandfather first."

I rolled my eyes up to the ceiling of my car. "Okay," I sighed.

There was a pause, a fumbling, and then my grandfather answered the phone. "Hello?" he said, sounding confused, like he had no idea who I was even though my mother had already announced me.

"Hi grandpa!" I said in the brightest, fakest voice I could muster up.

"Oh, hi, kid," he said.

"Hi. How are you doing?" I asked.

My grandfather cleared his throat. "Well," he said, "I've got diarrhea."

And what does one say to that? It was not my intention to ask after his bowel movements--I'm pretty sure that's not what's implied in the everyday statement How are you doing?--but that's what my grandfather gave me, and I had to say I was sorry to hear that but I bet he had a nice dinner anyway, and he said he did, and then I decided that was enough for the day, so I announced I was going through a toll booth and I needed to hang up so I could find some change. There wasn't a toll booth in sight, but believe me when I tell you that was a very necessary white lie.