I have a problem that I believe is one of the reasons I have no choice but to write.  I have an extremely active imagination. The other night, I was laying in bed reading when I heard a baby crying.  I put down the book to listen to the anguished wails.  Was it coming from outside my open window? It stopped for a few seconds then started again. I became worried. Jumping from the bed I ran to our front door.  Opening it, my eyes were glued to the doorstep. Nothing was there.  I stuck my head out and  concentrated on the sounds of the night.  No baby.  I closed the door. Did the mother change her mind and retrieve the baby before I untangled myself from the sheets?  Had I heard the baby on the neighbor’s door step?  I headed down the hallway back to my room.  Suddenly, it hits me.  The TV is on in the other room.  “Was there a baby crying on your TV?” I ask.  Now I ask you, what kind of person would literally check their doorstep for an abandoned baby before considering the noise came from a TV in an adjacent room?  A person with an imagination problem that’s who.

People wonder how I can write the borderline horror thrillers I write and not be able to watch a horror movie without loosing a nights sleep to increasingly disturbing nightmares.  Right now, as I sit here at my Panera office I want to scream, “Help! The man next to me is clipping his nails.”  All I can think of is a nail popping up to stab me in the eye.  I can just see it.  Half of it lodged in my eye and the other half sticking out like an arrow in a target.  Curved and hard like an eyelash white coral reef in a sea of black reeds.  I’d be driven to the hospital, trying not to squeeze or rub my eye as I yell for my mommy.  Stop it!  This is not darts, man!  You will NOT get a bullseye score if you hit my pupil. I swear if you even scrape me I’m suing like a gold digging mama looking for child support from a famous athlete.

All this I thought of before he even finished his first finger.  I’m telling you I got problems.

That real time look at my wacky stream of conscienceness was such a better example of my issues then the one I was going to tell you about my cat yelping.  ‘Cause even though I know it’s much more probable that she got her tail caught on something or saw a bug she didn’t like, I refused to acknowledge the cry in any way because she could have been fighting to the death with a rodent of heretofore unknown size and species.  Also an option, a serial killer who silenced her by crushing her skull beneath his boot.

I said I got issues.

Anyway,  to all of you who have a similar problem to me, I sympathize.  We never learned to fully quell the infinite possibilities with the science of probability.  Go forth my brethren and channel all that crazy into an art of your choice.  The art consumers of the world love you for it.