Purple People Eater
"A one-eyed, one-horned, flyin' purple people eater" ... Sheb Wooley's 1958 #1 song The Purple People Eater suddenly was on my favorite station. Wow! It's terrific. So much fun! I called my daughter to come listen, and she immediately fell in love with it. She downloaded it and played it over and over, non-stop, day after day, obsessed with it. Understandably so. Why not? After all ... the purple people eater was "Playin' rock and roll music through the horn in his head" ... how great was that!
My daughter's obsession grew and grew. She imagined herself friends with the purple people eater. They played together every day after school. They talked together through dinner. Eventually, I became concerned. Wasn't it enough already?
Then the unimaginable happened. When I picked her up after school one afternoon, she came out looking like a purple people eater. When I checked, I realized it wasn't a costume. No, she actually had been physically transformed into a purple people eater by the school's medical staff, using surgery and hormone treatment. What?!? I took her hand and ran with her back into the school to find the principal. When I found him, I asked him What in the world did you do?!? He looked confused. What do you mean? Why are you upset. All we did was what your daughter told us to do. We had to. It's her body, her choice. She said she identified as a purple people eater, and remaining in the body of a human girl made her feel very very upset. I was flabbergasted, and told the principle he should have called me because I'm the Mother. Again he look confused. Now now, he said, there's no cause for you to use such a vulgar word as Mother ... and, as you know, I'm the child's parent during school hours, not you. When I started to give the principle a piece of my mind, two armed FBI agents who were hiding behind a pillar jumped out, put me in handcuffs and leg irons, taped my mouth shut, put a black hood over my head, and hauled me off to who knows where. I was indicted and convicted of domestic terrorism, and was incarcerated. I would seek legal assistance, but I'm not allowed to speak with a lawyer.
I don't know how long I've been in custody, because I don't have a window and cannot see the sun or the moon ... I don't know what day it is. But I'm not as upset as you might think ... I'm sustained by the blessing of my child having become a purple people eater, instead of having become a racist, misogynistic, Nazi, White supremacist man. A White man, that would have been an unbearable outcome! Thanks be to God.
Oh oh. They heard me say "God". They just cut out my tongue. AAARRRGGGHHH!