When I was a kid in the 70’s, my best friend and I would watch ‘Science Fiction Theater’ or 'Action Theater' on Saturday mornings. We would huddle on the living room floor with pillows and blankets, and scare ourselves silly watching old monster, alien, and space travel movies, hiding under the blankets if things got especially scary. We had such great fun. One old movie, in particular, stuck in my memory -
'Invasion of the Body Snatchers'. It was very creepy, and for weeks afterwards, whenever someone behaved even the least bit strangely, I was absolutely convinced they had been snatched by aliens, like the victims in the film. The movie was about a doctor from a small town in California, who starts hearing from many of his patients that their family or friends are acting strange. While they still look the same, their behavior has changed, and they are cold, distant, and just “not themselves”. The doctor eventually discovers that aliens are taking over the town, using huge seed pods, which they have sent to earth. The pods had been stashed in the basements, attics, or garages of people’s houses, and at night when the innocent townspeople go to sleep, aliens emerge from the pods, and assume the exact physical appearance of a targeted human being, who is then destroyed. Talk about scaring the daylights out of two girls! I don’t remember the ending, except that all ends well, but I remember vividly the creepiness of this movie, and the saying it seems to have spawned in popular culture; i.e. when someone acts strangely, I’ve often heard people say “OK, where’s the pod???”, implying that their behavior is so strange that they must actually be an alien.
So fast forward to 2009. My house. In small town Tennessee. And my son, James, is clearly NOT acting like himself. This is a stereotypical 10-year old boy, who normally leaves a trail of clutter, shoes, and laundry behind him. I dread entering his room because I know it's usually a disaster zone, with books, footballs, and toys tossed on the floor, dirty socks and underwear (eeewwwww) kicked under the bed, and things generally just left wherever they were used last. As hubby often says, James lives how bears would live IF they had furniture. But last weekend I spent a whole day cleaning the house, and it was exhausting work – countless trips up and down the stairs, and hours of sweeping, wiping, dusting, and putting things away, and by the end of the day, I was wiped out. So I wasn’t surprised when later I overheard my hubby telling the kids that “…. We need to help Mom out, because we’re relying on her too much to keep this place clean…” Mental high fives! Yes! Thank you Lord! Now if only they would just take those words to heart....
And then last night, I was stunned when James came bopping down the stairs carrying a laundry basket with the sheets from his bed, passed by where I was sitting in the living room, and headed into the laundry room where he proceeded to load the sheets into the washer and start the wash cycle. And then load them into the dryer when they were done. And that’s not all... He took the sheets out and MADE HIS BED when the sheets were clean and dried. I am not kidding. And there's more! He even gathered laundry from our room and his sister’s room, and washed, dried, and folded three more loads, insisting all the time that he could do it all by himself saying“… I can do this. You need to take a break, Mom!”. Totally blew me away; I’m about to faint just thinking about it! And when I wake up, I’m gonna go and find the pod. It has to be hiding somewhere…..
Update 9/24/09: James did ANOTHER load of laundry last night. I'm still looking for the pod...
Followed by floats from a few of the many churches in our community...
The local high school football team and cheerleaders, very proud of their 3-0 season thus far...
... or a horse!
