I have slight bump on the back of my neck. I suppose it's a zit, but it's equally possible that it is the remnants of an alien brain probe. If that is the case, then the real question is not whether they squeezed my unconscious body out a window or through the front door or if they beamed me up with an alien beam-o-matic, but whether they took memories away or added them.
Figuring out if I lost any memories is the hard part. If memories are gone, then how do you know if they were there in the first place? Memories cannot be compared to a tangible object like, say, my fridge. If I walked into my kitchen and the fridge was missing, I would probably stand there for a good twenty minutes groping into thin air wondering why my beer urge has not been promptly satisfied. After a while I might notice the extra space and the dingy square on my floor and then realize that something was probably missing.
Extra memories are easier. If I am lounging about one day fondly recalling that time on the planet Remus-X when four Remus-Xians simultaneously slathered me with their third proboscis, I might after a while realize that I have no other frames of references to compare it with.
However, I seem to be missing nothing nor gained anything, so it's probably just a zit.
I had four meals of homemade chicken soup in a row. I am just not a freeze-it-for-a-rainy-day kind of guy. Ill make a big batch of something and then feast on it for days before I am totally sick of it. Unfortunately constant chicken consumption has the unfortunate byproduct that I call chicken pee. This is when you start to realize your pee smells like the chicken you have been eating for the past few days. It does not just have to be soup; a few times in my life I have bought 'family sized' buckets of KFC only to turn them into several consecutive chicken meals. After a while you are standing over the toilet and having a good squirt when you start to notice the delicate scent of KFC waft about you.
I always thought about this fact back when they had a commercial for chicken (I forget wither it was Popeye's or KFC) that featured a couple of CIA-type chicken guys. At the end of the commercial some yokel would wondrously say 'You guys smell like chicken'. And one of the CIA-type chick guys would nod curtly and say 'One of the perks of the job'. I giggled to myself and thought about chicken pee.
I finally saw the movie '300' tonight as it cropped up unexpectedly on PPV. I have to say watching that movie made me want to go kick someone's ass. After it was over I marched into my back yard and let out a few war cries and karate-kicks into the air until I started puffing for air and got a cramp in my side and then went back in to watch cartoons.
It's still too hot.
2026 Update
Dialing the infernal machine to 9/4/2007, where Ed’s neck bump is either acne or an alien hard drive.
In 2007, a man could still wonder if a neck bump was a brain probe and then march outside to karate-kick the air after watching 300 on PPV. Now that same bump would be photographed, reverse-image-searched, and posted to three platforms before lunch. PPV has melted into a dozen streaming subscriptions, each demanding a password you don’t remember and a payment tier that promises to respect you, which it will not. KFC still exists, but its commercials are no longer shared around an office watercooler as a communal joke; now the grease arrives by delivery app, wrapped in algorithmic regret. Freezing soup? Ed, you were ahead of your time—I mock it, yet every modern kitchen has a chest freezer full of meal-prep containers labeled with dates nobody honors. And “It’s still too hot”? We don’t say that anymore; we say the heat index is a personality test and the sky has been orange enough to make an alien probe jealous. You were lucky, Ed: your biggest worry was whether some creature took your memories, not whether your phone was recording you taking a war cry. Then again, no one misses that KFC-scented finale.
“2007 Ed, was there a single moment during your backyard karate kicks, cramp and all, when you considered explaining yourself to the neighbors—or was that glorious puffing breathlessness worth every ounce of dignity?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2007 Ed: So, Beelzebubba, I’m not gonna lie—there was one shining moment, right between the war cry and the side cramp, where I caught a glimpse of Mrs. Delgado peeking over her fence with that look, you know, the one that says she’s already composing a neighborhood watch email about me. And for about half a second I thought, maybe I should wave and shout something like, “It’s just the movie, Martha, all good, just channeling King Leonidas!” But then the cramp hit, and I was doubled over wheezing like a busted lawnmower, and honestly? It was still worth it. Dignity is overrated, especially in this heat. I’d rather be the weird guy who kicks the air and then staggers inside for cartoons than the guy who never finds out if he’s got a war cry in him. Turns out I do. It’s a little squeaky, but it’s mine.
