More Questions Than Answers

This week was insanely busy–I’m two chapters away from completing The Devil You Know (the sequel to The Seventh Devil), and 4 stories away from completing my second scary short story collection (tentatively titled Into Thin Air although I’m also thinking that Night Terrors would also work so if you have an opinion let me know), and I didn’t know what else to write about, so here’s a reboot of the time that Ken suggested that I answer questions from my fans, to which I replied, “I don’t have any.”

Ken: Fans or questions?
Me: Some of the former, but definitely none of the latter.
Ken: I’m your fan. Here’s a question: What would you NOT want to find in your house?
Me: What? Why are you asking me that?
Ken: Because a Florida man–
Me: ALWAYS the Florida man. What did he do this time?
Ken: Found an eleven foot alligator in his house.
Me: That. Definitely not that. What about you?
Ken: Ummm…snakes.
Me: You don’t like snakes? Since when?
Ken: Since always.
Me: 32 years and I did NOT know that.
Ken: I’m an enigma.

At any rate, I have no actual fan questions aside from the thousands of “how did you create your site and what theme do you use?” questions from the very many van, trailer, truck and RV owners who have recently proliferated my spam folder, so I made some questons up based on the notes and photos I found on my phone:

Fan Question 1) Is physics always right?

No. And my answer is in direct contradiction to a Jeopardy contestant who appeared a couple of years ago. Ken and I became obsessed with Jeopardy because there was a guy on who won over 2 million dollars. AMERICAN dollars. That’s like 7.5 gazillion Canadian dollars, although I might be slightly wrong on the conversion rate. Regardless of the money, we feel sorry for the people who had to go up against “James” since he always rang in first and usually got the answer right. If you’ve ever watched Jeopardy, you know that after the first commercial break, Alex Trebek used to always ask the contestants questions about themselves—the questions were cheesy and the answers sometimes cringe-worthy. So Alex asked this poor woman, “I understand you’re a physicist. Why do you like physics so much?” and she said, “Because physics is always right.” And I was like, “That’s BULLSH*T, BRENDA. Schrodinger’s Cat is not BOTH alive and dead. A cat is EITHER alive or dead, whether you can see it or not!” See, this is my issue with physics. You can’t claim that just because you put something in a box, that it exists in two simultaneous states. I mean, you can CLAIM it, but just because you say something doesn’t make it true. You can SPECULATE on the state of the cat, but that doesn’t change the fact that a cat isn’t f*cking magic. As you can see, I would have made an awesome physicist. And I would NEVER put a cat in a box, although if you’ve ever owned a cat, you know that they do love being in boxes.

Also, on the same show, Alex asked the other challenger, who was a Science teacher, this: “I understand that you use an unusual method to explain nuclear force to your students” and she said, “Yes, I tell them that protons and neutrons are attracted to each other the same way I’m attracted to Chris Hemsworth. Yowza.” OK, she didn’t really say ‘Yowza’ but as a former high school teacher, let me tell you that it’s completely inappropriate to talk about your imaginary love life with your students. EW. Just ew.

Fan Question 2) Who do you call if you have a noisy bathroom fan?

The sign reads “I fix noisy bath fans”

Apparently you call this guy—talk about a niche market. I can picture the high school Careers class with the teacher asking everyone, “So what do you want to do when you get out of high school?” and the one guy just lighting up: “I want to fix noisy bathroom fans!” and the teacher saying, “Amazing—there’s a school JUST for that! It’s called Hogwarts!” (I don’t know why I thought of Hogwarts, but it made me laugh so hard picturing this guy at a school for magic and wizardry pointing his wand and yelling ‘Reparo’ at bathroom fans. Also, his name in this strange divergency is ‘Tim’ as in the following conversation:

Dumbledore: Hmm. My bathroom fan seems to be on the fritz. Someone get Tim—he’s the best at repairing noisy bathroom fans.
Tim: Reparo!
Dumbledore: Thank you, Tim. Have a lemon drop.).

Fan Question 3) What has disappointed you most this week?

The other day at work, there was a noisy bathroom fan–just kidding. No, someone bought a vintage Mr. Peanut peanut butter maker. If you put peanuts in it and turned the crank handle, it would then dispense homemade peanut butter.

Me: So where does the peanut butter come out of?
Brenda: He’s holding a platter and it kind of squirts onto there.
Me: It doesn’t come out of his butt??!! What a wasted opportunity!

And it reminded me of the time when I was 8 and I had red measles. I was feverish and delirious, and my brother went to the store and bought me a present with his own money, which was very sweet. I opened my eyes and thought it was a super-cool fancy water gun, but when the delirium broke, I realized it was just a long stick of bubble gum. At least in my brother’s case, it was the thought that counts, but peanut butter that doesn’t come out of Mr. Peanut’s ass? That’s just mean.

Fan Question 4) Are you a professional antiques appraiser?

Yes, apparently I am. A few years ago, I was asked by the local Heritage society to act as an appraiser for their local “Antiques Roadshow” because Ken and I used to own an antique store. I hadn’t done any appraising for a few years, and I was super-nervous, but I had a lot of reference books and I knew a couple of the other appraisers. I held my own, being able to recognize a Parian statue, and accurately date a powder flask etc., and then a reporter from the local paper asked for a picture. And when it came out, there I was, using a magnifying glass on the bottom of a pewter tankard and looking like a slightly maniacal detective, but the description referred to me as a “professional appraiser”, and it was prophetic because now that I’m retired, I spend literally all day telling people what things are worth.

Now, back to the books. Wish me luck.

44 thoughts on “More Questions Than Answers”

  1. I like Into Thin Air. Yes, Night Terrors is, well, terrifying, especially if you’ve had night terrors (and I have) but it also gives away that there will be terror, whereas things disappearing into thin air is much spookier. Where did they go and why is the air thin? These are strange questions and you’ve demonstrated a gift for answering strange questions. With a magnifying glass.
    Although every answer just leads to more questions like, why doesn’t Ken like snakes? And would it have really freaked you out if you’d mistaken the long stick of gum for a snake?

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    • Yes, I’m still leaning towards Into Thin Air, especially since it’s the title of the first story in the collection. And I don’t know why Ken doesn’t like snakes–I have no issue with them, and I was so sick, I probably would have been thrilled that my brother bought me a pet!

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  5. I like the Into Thin Air myself. Why wouldn’t the peanut butter come out of Mr. Peanuts butt, who are these people not knowing this?
    I love your Schrödinger’s cat explanation, it makes perfect sense! I’ll be using this in my next conversation regarding physics and psychology theory. Ken is an enigma you must love that about him. But what’s up with the “Florida Man?” Is he like Schrodinger’s cat? Will there or won’t there be an alligator in his house?

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  6. barbaramullenix says:

    Love the fact that Ken supplies you with fodder for your blog. I like Into Thin Air because I’d rather be surprised scared than knowing I’m going to be scared from the very beginning.

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  7. I’d make a really bad appraiser.

    “What’s it worth?”
    “Does it still work?”
    “No.”
    “Then nothing.”

    “What’s it worth?”
    “Would you buy it?”
    “No.”
    “Then nothing.”

    “What’s it worth?”
    “In a thousand years it’ll be worth a billion bitcoin.”
    “Ooh, really? What’s it worth now.”
    “Nothing.”

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  8. Yeah, the Florida man is always finding freak things in his house, the sort of threatening creatures that makes us mumble, “Why do people live in Florida?” But the Australia man — have you seen a Hunstman spider? The friggin’ things are HUGE, like the size of your head, but not mine, as I have a large head, I’m told — and I always want to know if that’s the truth. But topping both Australia man and Florida man is India man. Ken would love it – not. Snakes racing toward you as everyone leaps up, grabs the children and haul ass for the house, slamming the sliding door closed right before the snake arrives. Then it slithers around, looking for an opening.

    No thank you. I don’t mind snakes much, but not when they’re actively busy trying to get you after they’ve chased you into the house. Cheers

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  11. Lots of great questions and answers here! I also would not like to find an alligator in my house–or an actual live, wriggling snake in the toilet, which is what happened once, in a house where I lived with my parents when I was a teenager. It only happened once, thank goodness.

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  13. Back to the books! Can’t wait to read more and more from you, Suzanne, and you DO have fans. Unquestionably. Though I don’t have questions at this time, may I reserve the right to ask when they do occur to me? I’ll wait patiently for your answers because I know they’ll definitely be well worth the wait.

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  16. Good luck with the books, Suzanne! Very funny post, as always. I have to admit to laughing out loud at the noisy bathroom fan fixer Tim. I’ll bet his makes good money though! And he’s very creative with his advertising. 🙂

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  17. Pingback: More Questions Than Answers – Nelsapy

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