Ms. Know It All
I feel like I’m dead.
No – it’s not a health thing; it’s all good. Let me back up and tell you what I believed as a kid. When you’re 7 or 8 there are so many things you don’t understand that people can convince you of the most absurd things.
My sister Angel convinced me if I looked into the mirror too much the devil would jump out and get me. I can’t tell you how many times I was too scared to go into my parent’s bedroom, where they had a big mirror. Susan Staeger convinced me that finding cracks in the dry, summer ground – along with certain rocks “that are only found in Florida”- were a sign that some monster broke through the earth’s crust. Yeah, I fell for the old bogey man story.
And, of course, I got my chance to do the same. I convinced my sister Camille that I could fly to “the Little Land” which magically appeared in a cloud over the Acme every night at midnight and where everyone looked just like me – with a sister who looked just like her. Oh, and we could talk to them through the mirror. Obviously, I got over my devil fear.
But sometimes I figured things out for myself. And I think I got some of it right. Really really right.
No one can really tell you what happens when you die and go to heaven. Oh, and I knew there was no chance I’d be going to hell; as a Catholic, all I had to do was go into a box and tell some faceless man my “sins” and all would be forgiven. So I knew I’d end up with Saint Peter.
But what does death mean? Back then, in my attempt to understand – and perhaps to make it less scary in my own mind – I decided that when you died and went to heaven, you would automatically know everything; what happened before you were born, why birds can fly, what people really thought about you. That last one made me a little nervous, but I figured I’d deal with that as long as I could know everything else. Back then, your best bet was an encyclopedia and it didn’t cover everything I wanted to know (especially about the stuff you weren’t supposed to ask about. . . ).
Thanks to the magic of the internet and my iPhone, all I have to do is punch in some letters and virtually every morsel of information that I’d ever want to know is at my fingertips. And Google is apparently working on Google Glasses, which will give you even easier access to even more information, like looking at a restaurant and seeing their menu, hours of operation, even food reviews. You’ll probably even have face recognition software in those glasses which means that when you see someone on the street, you’ll immediately know their name (Hooray! No more “Hi, there. . . guy.”).
So, maybe I was right. Heaven is knowing everything. And I’m already there. But I still can’t figure out if Dennis really really loved me. . .
Tags: Babedom, finding info, information super highway, men over 40, secrets kids tell, stories kids make up, things we believe, women over 40
Hello Lulu,
Heaven, Hell, and Pergatory are all here and now. Life is what you make it, in spite of the fact that there are assholes you meet along the way that try to make your life as miserable as theirs. Whatever happens after you die is anybodies guess, and I guess we’ll find out sooner (now that we’re older)than later. Oh yea, and when I went into the box to confess my sins the guy on the other side stuck his hand through a hand-sized doggie door and tried to grab my “swanze”. That ended those weekly scheduled visits (which were quite lengthly) excuse the pun!!!