Mary Louise Jamison Abducted by Aliens? Please.

Mary Louise Jamison has been impossible to live with ever since she and her dog were abducted by aliens and given a preview of the end of the world. She said it was like at the movies, where they show the highlights of coming attractions before the main feature, only this one, like I say, was about the coming annihilation of the planet.

And I do mean impossible to live with.

I have chosen my words carefully: both of them saw this, she says that both she and the dog were ‘stolen into space’ and the dog was given this same eerie foreshadowing of the demise of the planet that she received.

Look, I went to school with Mary Louise Jamison, and when I say school I don’t just mean Gulch County Junior College, I mean grade school, and every grade after grade school.

I do Mary Louise Jamison’s hair for heaven’s sake and can tell you more than she or you would want to know about the state of her roots and her soaring vanity, if I may use the phrase, soaring vanity, regarding the streaks she has me put in. The woman has no secrets from me.

You may see us together in the class pictures of Holy Name Church, first through eighth grade, and while you may have some difficulty in finding me, you will have no such difficulty in finding Mary Louise, as she always finds a way, always, to draw attention to herself.

She was never satisfied unless she was at the front of the group, and I do not mean by this that she dominated the pictures in some theoretical way or by way of her personal charisma or that the camera loved her as they are reported to say in Hollywood, I mean that she has placed herself at the very front of the group over and over again.

So I am not surprised that you cannot open the county newspaper or turn on the local TV without seeing Mary Louise Jamison again getting interviewed on the topic of her abduction by aliens. Oh, and her dog.

You would think people would catch on considering that this is the fourth time she claims she has been abducted by space aliens.

She made quite the splash the first time out, we had reporters all over this town, but now if she brings it up like if you see her in the produce aisle at the market, all of us just say something like, “I don’t mind the heat, but do you think this humidity is ever going to clear out?”

Before I leave the topic of these school class pictures, I’d just like you to know that Jamison is Mary Louise’s maiden name, she reverted to it after divorcing her second husband Fred. This was her fourth husband but her second Fred, her first husband was named Fred too. In any event, you would have thought that she had discovered the cure for graying hair, a cure that she herself could badly use, due to all the commotion she raised simply by keeping the name she had when she was single.

What I say, which is why I bring it up, what is the first thing you notice about the name of Jamison?

That’s right, it’s smack in the middle of the alphabet. So you tell me how come Mary Louise is always at the front of the class pictures? We had members of many proud family names in the A to I categories, and it is not like they were all sick on that day. Take me: my last name is Andrews. I don’t know how you could rightly be in front of me in class pictures unless your name was AAAAA Automotive.

No, I will tell you why Mary Louise is front and center in those pictures: because that is her way.

It is as simple as that. It is her way. She simply cannot let anyone’s attention wander away from her for even a moment, I don’t care if you have seen a meteor or one of the archangels, these simply don’t rate.

So when you tell me that she is again in the papers, this time claiming that not only had she again been abducted by aliens, but so had her dog, then I have to tell you that I have my suspicions.

Do you know that dog? Who would want anything to do with it? I don’t care if you are an alien space invader. And why would you waste a preview of the annihilation of the planet on this unimpressive creature?

It is one of those dogs that combine the worst of several breeds. He is composed almost entirely of loose skin, looking much as though he had been boiled down from a much bigger dog or had at one time been inflated but the air has almost entirely leaked out. His breathing is not subtle or soothing, and gets mixed up with his saliva production in unpleasant ways that I don’t want to get into here, only to say that he sounds like a small internal combustion engine, like on a lawnmower? You know what I mean? Only this engine hasn’t been tuned for years, and the spark plug isn’t firing in any predictable way, so he just sits there breathing noisily, holding himself a bit like a toad, squat, you know what I mean?

Now what alien would want a dog like that?

I can point out any number of fine animals around here that any alien ought to be proud to abduct, and which would make a handsome addition to any otherworldly being’s laboratory or mammalian sample exam room.

I myself have a lovely Sheltie, why wouldn’t they take it? This is what makes me suspicious of the whole thing.

That is enough about the dog.

I’ll tell you what I think. I think she cooked up this whole alien abduction thing just to get her name out there again and get some publicity for that silly cookbook she is always pushing on you.

Volume Three, if you can believe it. No one was asking for Volume One, missy, and now you foist three of them upon an unsuspecting public? Who needs an alien invasion from outer space to wipe out humanity when you have Mary Louise Jamison’s cooking cut loose upon the planet?

Have you seen what she says in her interviews? The reporter will inquire as to what the first thing is that the aliens want to know about humans. And do you know what she says? She says they all want to know if everyone on earth can cook as well as she can!

She says this with a straight face.

While everyone knows that husband three and five are widely rumored to have died at the hand of her cooking. ‘No known cause,’ the autopsy report says. I or anyone in Holy Name parish can give you a cause: how about Mary Louise’s Creamed Possum on Toast? How about her One Layer Lard Salad? How about her Field Mouse Casserole Surprise? The surprise is that anyone would think to make a casserole out of field mice! Not to mention that the mere quantities of mushroom soup in these dishes is enough to bring on a medical condition all on its own.

And yet there she is, proudly holding up the book —More of Mary Louise’s Gulch County Cooking – in those cheesy posters of hers tacked to the bulletin board down at the A&P, ‘the favorite cookbook of alien invaders.’

Good God, is all I have to say, Good God.

If she was abducted by aliens, and if they did in the face of all common sense and instincts of self-preservation and space exploration protocol taste any of her recipes, all I can say is that we have nothing to fear from alien invaders from outer space, nothing to fear at all.

They’re all dead now, their advanced rocket ships aimlessly circling the earth manned now by deceased aliens. Spinning out of control like as not.

I don’t say that she killed them on purpose, no more than she killed husband three and five on purpose. All she had to do was cook for them. All she had to do was feed them. Yet more victims of Mary Louise’s kitchen.

You learned your way soon enough around Mary Louise’s dishes, she was on the Church Lady Funeral Committee, they all brought pot luck dishes down to the church basement after funerals for the congregation.

The people around here knew what was what, but for strangers we, all the rest of us, would stand at the front of the line – you can go down both sides of the table, which is what complicates matters – and steer people away from Mary Louise’s dishes. Good Lord, one funeral per day is enough.

Though the church was all set up in a funeral manner, I will say that now that I think about it.

I do have to say that the quality or prestige of the interviewers is declining. Whereas before there she was in USA Today pointing to the sky and squinting and preening on the Today Show, I see that this most recent media blitz, the one with this dog, and this alien invaders’ favorite chef – chef no less – has extended upward in the media trajectory no further than the Gulch County Star, a weekly known more for its grocery ads, farm auctions, denture discounts, hearing aid coupons, and advertisements for estate sales than for its heavy doses of hard-hitting news content.

She says right in the interview that the aliens told her when the world was going to end, but when asked herself to name the date she turns coy and says we all have to wait for Volume Four of her cookbook, when she will tell us the answer to everything.

Good God, Good God.

As I have indicated, Volume Three, if it ever escapes into wider circulation, is going to wipe out most of our species. There won’t be anyone left to be a cruel alien overlord to! A wasteland is all that will remain, courtesy of Mary Louise Jamison.

Always at the front of the school pictures, always pushing herself forward.

Don’t tell her I said all this though. It wouldn’t be right for her to think her hairdresser is talking about her. It might put a wedge between us.