Dune, Toilets, & Summoning Aliens

Have you ever been reading a book but somehow you feel like you missed a page, or there was something the author forgot to tell you? I just got off the phone with my younger sister and she shared with me an incident from our youth, that at the time made no sense to me. Now I get it and to be honest, feel a little bad about. It illustrates a couple of points, the least of which is how very weird my family is. My sister is not going to thank me for telling this story, but in my defense anything you tell a writer is fair game, that’s just the way it is. Love ya, kiddo.

Like most of my stories you need a little background material. My life story has footnotes. If I tried to tell the story without the footnotes, we’d never get to the punch line. Okay, my mother’s favorite book in the entire world, galaxy, and universe is Frank Herbert’s Dune. If you haven’t heard of it or seen the movie, don’t bother because it’s too late for you (or consider yourself spared). I’ve been reading and re-reading this book since my early teens and I still can’t fathom half of what it’s about. Second, my sister is eight years younger than me, so there were a lot of things that I was reading and watching that she probably got exposed to a little too soon. We like to warp young minds in my family - call it a hobby.

As a kid, Annie had this inexplicable fear of aliens. Many was the night that she stumbled into my room afraid that the aliens were going to get her. And I let her sleep with me, even though she kicked the crap out of me and I ended up in the floor. I let her sleep with me because I remembered being scared of stuff, and, as big and bad as I tried to be, there was stuff that still scared me – like zombies, but that’s another story. Anyway, Annie also had another issue. She didn’t like to flush the toilet (this is the part where she starts hating me). Many was the morning that the teenage Mrs. Fox would trudge out of bed only to find "unpleasantness in the facilities" (there, I tried to soften the blow). Like any good older sister I’d scream at her and call her names, but I never thought to ask why.

Today I learned why. See in the movie version of Dune (which was watched religiously in our home) they use these devices called thumpers to draw the giant, man-eating sandworms away from wherever the hero or his comrades were (I know I’ve lost a lot of you, but I swear that’s a pretty good layman’s description). Somehow, because of this, my poor little sister got it in her head that there was a specific sequence of noises that would summon the aliens. And of course, the loudest thing in our house was the toilet. So, poor little sis was afraid that if she flushed the toilet the aliens would come and get her.

I know! I feel like such a jerk for yelling at her!

So there, in addition to compounding her childhood fears I’ve published them for the world to see. Aren’t I the best? You know what’s worse? My mom’s gonna be mad that that’s all she got out of Dune.

If you've survived this far through my story, let me say thanks to all you beautiful people who responded to my last post. Thank you for your support and kind words and understanding and all-around divinity. You are jewels without price.