Walking into Moe’s Café is like walking into a grave, I pinch myself to make sue I’m not dreaming. It’s gloomy, bitter, and unimaginably grimy. The black and white tiled floor is covered in a thick fog of dust and dirt. The stained walls are draped with dusty old pictures and numerous cob-webs. As I glance at the menu to find something to eat, I am nauseated by the food listings. The specials of the day are fried worms with zucchini-squash and bird stew and green eggs. It looks as though I won’t be eating today.
I decide to sit at the cleanest looking table, but I have to break out my wet-naps to wipe away the stickiness from the filth. Behind the counter is a woman: she looks about twenty years old, malnourished and underweight, and has a very worried look in her eyes. Behind her is a man, I’d assume him to be Moe. He is quite large and looks old. His over-stretched tank-top is stained with grease and sweat. His blue jeans are placed way too low on his bulging waist (I’m quite sure that if he’d turn around, I’d meet a new plumber).
The place reeks of body odor and sweat. The faint smell of the grill smoke is wafting from the kitchen window. The people in the booth behind me are conversing about road kill stew and turtle-jerky. Yuck! On the jukebox the always annoying song called Sweet Home Alabama is blaring. The TV is faintly playing Green Acres. I decide to make my way to the jukebox to find a new song, maybe it will help the time pass. I plop in my quarter and start to scroll through the songs. Prince- NO, Eagles- NO, Britney Spears- Definitely not! Oh, Styx that works. Then Mr. Roboto begins to play. I tap my toes all the way back to my dirty booth.
As the best part of the song begins to play, the weirdest thing happens. The woman behind the counter, who looked like she hadn’t eaten in years, was screaming. She threw herself here and there, flailing her arms like a chicken. She was rolling on the floor, seeming to be in the fetal position, holding her ears. “Maybe she doesn’t like Styx,” I thought.
Every person in the building rushes over, myself included, while she continues to wail. Then big Moe comes out like a bulldozer and holds her down. “What is your problem, Blanche!” he demands. She finally stops howling enough to cry, “He doesn’t like it! Turn off the song! It Hurts! It Hurts!” The stew and turtle jerky guy runs over to unplug the jukebox and the song stops. Blanche falls flat on her back as we all crowd around her, staring like deer in headlights. Moe picks her up and sets her in a chair firmly; I think he is a bit angry. We all wait for an explanation as to why she went psycho in the middle of the diner. After moments of silence she starts to talk.
“I have a gift. The aliens came to me one night about four months ago. They told me that they needed me to be a carrier. They wanted to see what our world is like, but they can’t be out in the open. I let them put a small alien inside my brain for observation, but they warned me first. The alien is very temperamental and he hurts me when he’s angry. He says he doesn’t like that song because on his planet, robots are evil. They try to take over his land and hurt his family. He cannot stand to hear about robots, that’s why he was hurting me. I hate this curse.”
We all stood with our jaws on the floor in astonishment. “She’s crazy,” I thought, “she is seriously senile. She can’t expect us all to believe that she has a mini-alien living in her brain. She’s totally wacko!” As I looked around to observe other people’s expressions, they all seemed compassionate. “I’m so sorry,” they all said.
“WHAT!?” I screamed, “Are you all insane? She is crazy! You can’t really believe that she has an alien living in her brain! Are you all insane here? What is this, some kind of mad house?”
“How can we not believe her,” the hillbilly said.
“She is obviously suffering,” another waitress exclaimed.
At that point I knew that they were all crazy. “I have to get out of this nut-house! You’re all insane!” I yelled. I sprinted out the door and to my car as fast as my legs would go. I jumped in the driver’s seat and sped away. “It’s a good thing I’m not crazy,” I said to myself after clearing the crazy town.
“Yeah,” I answered.