The Truth is Out There...Get My Glasses

Along about May of this year, the husband took it in his head to drain , clean and rehab our hot tub.   We hadn’t had the time or energy to perform these essential tasks in almost two years.  But thanks to the husband’s noble efforts, we can once again lounge in our warm, bubbly tubby and soak away the stress and strain of our over-committed lives. 

Just like everything else, though, having my tub back has only served to remind me of my increasing decrepitude.  We were lounging in the tub, gazing up at the darkening night sky—one of my favorite parts of a summer’s evening soak.  I always loved to watch the stars appear one at a time.  Tonight, however, the first light we saw in the sky was huge.  I thought it must be an airplane, but it just hung there.  Squinting my eyes, I saw the thing had at least six separate lights arranged around a central dot.  Or, if I closed one eye and almost closed the other, I could see that this whatever it was had four lights arranged along a horizontal bar of some kind.  And it was twinkling…looked as if it had some kind of landing lights blinking on and off.

When soaking in your hot tub, one of the first things you do is take off your glasses.  They are not much good in the tub, as they get all steamy, and if you park them on the side of the spa, they’ll more than likely get swept off by a flailing arm or leg.  So I had left my glasses upstairs on my vanity.  The more we trained our naked eyes upon this bright vision hovering above the neighbor’s yard , the more convinced we became that we were witnessing the appearance of a super-ship of a superior race.  Any minute, a little green man was going to zap down into the middle of our spa and ask us to take him to our leader.

“It’s a plane.”  “It’s a star.”  “It’s got about six blinking lights.”  “It’s a plane.”  “No, it’s not.”

Finally, no longer able to contain my curiosity, I slogged out of the tub, sloshed in the back door and dripped my way up the stairs to get my damn bifocals.  I padded across the living room and bedroom carpets, collecting  yeti-esque pads of  unvacuumed cat hair  on the bottoms of my wet feet.  I located my glasses, slapped them on my face and waddled to the window.

Venus.  It was our lovely sister planet Venus that we were accusing of bringing the first salvo in “War of the Worlds.”

Ten years ago, sitting in the hot tub under the stars was an entirely different experience.  What was once a pleasant, romantic way to while away an hour and watch the stars come out, is now an adrenalin-pumping encounter with the Mother Ship.

Just one more way that growing older makes life more interesting…