Take that time years ago when I went to the Richmond Star Trek convention, with my nerdy Trekker friends. We all piled into my Chrysler Station Wagon Mom Car like a college fraternity trying to break the Guinness world record and drove there from southwest Virginia.

Upon arriving and registering for the convention, my friends outed me as a first timer, aka a Newbie. I learned that it was a standing tradition for Newbies to buy the drinks (aka adult beverages). The news of my humble status spread like proverbial wildfire, and I made a lot of new friends rather quickly. Thankfully, I had packed my credit card.

At the convention’s welcome party, my nerdy Trekker friends and I chatted over drinks (that I paid for) with the con’s very special guest Nichelle Nichols, Star Trek’s awesome Lieutenant Uhura. The woman was gorgeous. She looked every bit as stunning in person as she did on the TV screen.

After the scheduled presentations by convention guest authors and illustrators, we squandered most of our money on Trek memorabilia in the dealer room. We then returned to the ball room to hear Nichelle Nichols speak about what it was like on the set of Star Trek. She also told a brief anecdote about how when she met Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., he changed her mind about quitting the show. During the first season, she was disappointed in how minor her role was. Much of the time all she got to say was, “Hailing frequencies open.”  Dr. King was surprised to hear that, and Nichelle was taken aback when he told her, “Don’t you know how important you are?” Dr. King explained that her role as Lieutenant Uhura was unique. Nichelle wasn’t playing a black maid, she was playing a bridge officer, a black woman in a position of authority. He appealed to her not to leave the show, and she bowed to his request. Nichelle ended her talk with an a cappella rendition of “Beyond Antares,” a song she sang in the Star Trek episode “Charlie X.” She received a standing ovation.

But I digress. My fond memories of that con distracted me from my original subject: larceny in my blood.

So like many science fiction conventions at that time, the organizers revealed to the attendees that due to circumstances beyond their control the con was in the red. All the guests, with the exception of Nichelle Nichols (who had already departed) had agreed to be auctioned off to the highest bidder for an hour of one-on-one quality time. One of the guests was the late Frank Kelly Freas, the dean of science fiction artists and illustrators. [His portraits of the Star Trek main characters are in the Smithsonian.] He offered to sketch a caricature of his winning bidder.

My nerdy Trekker friends and I couldn’t believe our ears. We were utterly disappointed. We were completely dismayed. We were totally bummed. We were also practically broke, you see, having spent nearly all our money in the dealer room. No auction bidding for us.

We sighed. We sulked. We wallowed in self-pity.

And then the light bulb flashed on over the head of the Mafia Princess.

ME: That’s it! I’ve got it! How much money do you all have left?

THEM: [In unison.] Why?

ME: Never mind why. Everybody count your money. Do it! Hurry!

There were seven of us. Lucky seven, I hoped. Everyone dug into their pockets and their wallets, counted their money, and reported back to me. Some had more than others. Fortunately, I had used my credit card to pay for the aforementioned drinks so I had a bit more cash left. Our total came to $120.00 or thereabouts.

ME: Great! Okay, people. Here’s the deal. We are going to bid on a guest. We’re pooling our cash and forming a syndicate. Now we should be able to outbid anyone else.

ONE OF THEM: Can we do that?

ME: No one said we couldn’t form a syndicate. Together we’ll blow away the competition.

ONE OF THEM: Are you The Godmother or something?

ME: Very funny. What do you say we bid on Kelly Freas? We’ll all get caricatures of ourselves done.

ONE OF THEM: But there are seven of us. What if he won’t sketch us all?

ME: [Without thinking.] We make him an offer he can’t refuse.

ONE OF THEM: Shoot. She is The Godmother or something.

To cut to the chase, we began bidding on Kelly Freas. When the bid went to $80.00, we decided to risk a jump bid to $120.00. That move stunned the competition and cut off the bidding. We got him! When we met him at the door of the ballroom, I informed him he had been bought by a syndicate and explained the details. He laughed and so did SF author Gordon R. Dickson who was standing beside him with his winning bidder.

Gordy suggested we all go to his room and that way all of us bidders would get two guests for the price of one. For more than twice the allotted one hour’s time, Gordy regaled us with several legendary tales of the golden age of science fiction while we drank his whiskey and Kelly sketched our caricatures, all thanks to the touch of larceny in my blood.

Alas, in spite of all my protestations, The Godmother label stuck. My nerdy Trekker friends thought it suited me.

There are three known drawbacks to collecting irresistible stuff that you find so fascinating that you absolutely must have it under your own roof so you may gaze on it lovingly and dust it occasionally.

Drawback Number One: You will eventually run out of space to house your collection of stuff and be forced to move to a larger dwelling. [That actually happened to a neighbor of mine.]

Drawback Number Two: Your spouse or significant other will eventually threaten to leave you if you don’t get rid of the cluttered mess of stuff you call a collection. [Same neighbor.]

Drawback Number Three: The inevitable. You didn’t think far enough ahead to the  day you die and leave that collection of stuff behind forcing someone else to deal with it. You fail to take into consideration that you might be the only one in your family who finds your stuff fascinating and irresistible. The family member who is stuck finding a home for your collection of stuff will not think kindly of you and may even bury you with it. [That neighbor is still alive, but this may possibly happen to him eventually.]

Seriously, the reason collecting too much stuff is on my mind this week is that I recently encountered a personal situation where huge collections of stuff were involved. Our family paid a visit to Macho Guy’s clan west of the Mighty Mississippi. Earlier in the year, a beloved family member had passed away. The rest of MG’s family was involved in settling her estate. Prior to the estate sale, we were all encouraged to select mementos from her many collections.

We walked through her condo encountering room after room with stacks of items from her home furnishings and her collections on display. Furniture, large and small decorative items, China, small appliances, artificial floral arrangements she created, Christmas decorations, costume jewelry, artwork, craft supplies, family photo albums, books, movie DVDs and music CDs, and more filled each room. We each chose a few items but hundreds remained. That walkthrough made me think of my sons and of my own bulky collections.

I’m a book slut. I never met a book I could say no to. There are books–romance, mystery, western, and science fiction novels, classics, poetry, plays, non-fiction and reference books–stacked double deep on the book shelves in my office. Those will be donated to the local library one day, although the autographed editions will no doubt be sold.

Unfortunately, neither of my sons has any interest in my Star Trek collection of movies, videotaped TV episodes, novels, magazines, Christmas ornaments, a collectable plate, a poster of The Enterprise, a pen and ink poster of Kirk and Spock, a cute littleTribble, and William Shatner’s autograph. Neither do they want my science fiction artwork collection. I have been urged to sell the lot on eBay as soon as possible so they won’t have to deal with it at some future date when I lift off for that Star Base in the Cosmos.

I cringed at the thought of how much time selling the collection would take away from my writing. I mentioned this to one of MG’s nephews who is also a writer and a Star Trek fan. He expressed interest, so the Mafia Princess made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. If he would sell my Star Trek collection for me–with three important exceptions–he could keep the money he got for it. The three important exceptions I made were: the pen and ink poster of Kirk and Spock, the cute little Tribble, and William Shatner’s autograph.

I refused to part with those three items while I’m still earthbound. I saw no need to go completely overboard. Surely dramatically downsizing the collection is more than sufficient and should ease my sons’ concerns. Wouldn’t you agree?

Oh, all right. I exaggerate, but not much. I took a photo of them to back up my claim.

It could be my somewhat overactive imagination, brought on from overdosing on too many classic fantasy and science fiction flicks through the years, but those tomato plants of ours bear an uncanny resemblance to the evil man-eating flora from that science fiction B-movie The Day of the Triffids.

The tomato plants have grown so huge, Macho Guy actually had to build a double rail enclosure to keep them from toppling over. MG was exasperated by this and complained that the plants behind our garage were growing taller and taller, but there were no tomatoes in sight, not even a blossom on the vines.

MG: I never should have listened to that guy.

ME: What guy?

MG: There was this guy at the greenhouse who told me I should buy some newfangled tomato plant food. He even got it off the shelf for me. Said it was the last bag.

ME: Was he one of the workers?

MG: [shaking his head] I think he was a customer. Strange looking dude. Had a weird-looking head.

ME: [wide-eyed] Weird-looking? Um, like, did he have shiny white hair and a high forehead with a deep depression in the middle of it?

MG: Huh?

ME: Oh, never mind.

I thought it best to bite my tongue and refrain from telling him that my imagination had kicked into overdrive again. You see, in that old science fiction flick This Island Earth, aliens from the planet Metaluna came to Earth in the hope of getting human scientists to find some way to save their world from being destroyed by another and more powerful alien race. If that were the weird greenhouse guy’s plan, he may have wanted us to grow giant mutant tomatoes like the ones in that comical science fiction B-Movie satire Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! so he could use them as an army to defeat his planet’s enemies. The admitted flaw in that theory was that no tomatoes, killer or otherwise, were growing at all. I came to the earthbound conclusion that the weird greenhouse worker must be human after all. Bummer.

MG’s grumbling ceased when the tomato plants began to flower, and soon afterward we spotted green tomatoes appearing here and there. Suddenly, tomatoes were everywhere and ripening with all due speed—and not one of them showed any signs of violence. Now MG is proud of the massive plants and how they are able to kick out tomatoes the way Ford Motor Company cranks out cars on its assembly lines. What’s more, our tomato plants do it without the assistance of assembly line robots.

While we both salivate over BLTs made with our tomatoes, we keep trying to increase our repertoire. We surf the net almost daily searching for new tomato recipes. Those fresh tomatoes right out of the garden are so delicious that I dread the end of the home garden growing season when we’ll be stuck having to buy taste-challenged supermarket tomatoes again. If we only had food replicators like those on Star Trek’s starship Enterprise, we could replicate tomatoes with that garden-fresh taste all year long. That would be fascinating. ::sigh::

A few nights ago, MG was inspired to try a salsa recipe he found. Very tasty—and it had quite a kick. He used two quarts of the tomatoes we picked, and we still had dozens left. We can’t use them or give them away fast enough. They continue increasing in number, like the alien pod people from Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

After our sons sent photos of their healthy-looking tomato plants to us, MG had me pose for a photo right up against our plants as a way for Firstborn and his Little Brother to gauge the plants’ approximate size. This was so MG could prove to them that his tomato plants were bigger than their tomato plants. ::groan:: Grow up, Guys. Seriously.

While I was posing for that photo, one of the tomato vines grazed my left arm in what I perceived was a menacing fashion. I envisioned having an experience akin to Dorothy’s in The Wizard of Oz when the angry apple tree slaps Dorothy’s hand because she took one of its apples without permission.

Nah. I can’t let my imagination run away with me again. This is the real world, not the world of science fiction and fantasy. Gravity was the undoubted culprit that dragged the heavy vine down onto my arm. I’m sure of it.

On the other hand, if I were a character in a science fiction B-movie, the probability would definitely exist that the tomato plant was a sentient alien, part of a sinister extra-terrestrial invasion force, and that it would issue a chilling telepathic warning to me:  Stop eating my young or die, puny Earthling.

Definitely food for thought.

I name my cars.

Why would an intelligent woman such as moi name her cars, you may ask?  Isn’t that a Stephen King Christine sort of thing? Not necessarily. You see, ever since I saw The Love Bug, that Disney movie about Herbie the Volkswagen Beetle who was sentient in his own mechanical way, I decided to treat my first car with respect and affection—just in case it’s alive—so I gave it a name.

I try to give my cars names that suit them. For example, I once had a Chevy Astro van that I called Van Go-Go. It was a van, it was always on the go hauling kids and groceries, and I loved the play on Vincent’s name. Shameless, I know.

I become very attached to my cars. I bond with them. I hold onto them for a decade or more before being persuaded to upgrade to a newer model. For Macho Guy, the car thrill is gone after a couple of years, and he wants something newer, hotter, faster. I consider myself fortunate that he only feels that way about cars.

A few years ago, when my Jeep Grand Cherokee Ltd topped eleven years old, MG persuaded me to trade Kee-Kee in on a crossover we could pack to the roof with our gear and drive it down to Florida in winter. MG went on reconnaissance first, scoped out the possibilities, and narrowed the choices down to two that fit our budget: a Chevy Equinox and a GMC Terrain. Both vehicles were fine, but neither convinced me to give up Kee-Kee.

MG noticed that I wasn’t turning cartwheels over either of his choices, and it was going to be my car, after all. He asked what I thought of the two. I was non-committal. I just shrugged. He let out a very resigned sigh . . .

MG: There is one other crossover I looked at, but I’m not sure I should show it to you.

ME: Why?

MG: Because I know you’ll want it.

ME: [with ears perked up] Oh?

He was sooooo right. The moment I sat in the driver’s seat, I lusted after the Ford Edge.

SALESLADY: The Edge has digital controls. Its touch screen has four quadrants: navigation, entertainment, climate, and phone. You can pair your phone with the SYNC system, and then receive and make hands free phone calls through the car. Use this button on the steering wheel to interact with the computer to tell it what you want.

ME: [in hushed tones] The car has a computer I can talk to?

She pressed the button to demonstrate, and I heard a harp like tone and then a female voice.

COMPUTER: Say a command.

It spoke! Just like the computer on Star Trek’s Enterprise! I got so excited I almost needed a change of underwear.

ME: [over the moon giddy] This is like piloting the Enterprise shuttlecraft!

MG: [from the back seat] I knew she’d like it. She’d buy a dump truck if it had all these gadgets.

There was never any doubt that we would buy the Ford Edge Ltd with its talking computer, geek girl that I am. The only decision remaining was what I would name my new Edge. That decision was an easy one. I named her after the actress who provided the starship Enterprise’s computer voice.

I call my Edge Majel.

In the passage of time, I forget whatever it was that I put in the safe place that is so safe that it’s safe from me as well because its whereabouts are no longer known to me.

I’ve been told I’m a pack rat because I never throw anything out. I dispute that. I believe pack rats know exactly what they have and where they put it, and they keep their stuff because they like it and want it. I never throw anything out because I don’t remember where I put it and don’t remember having it in the first place. Not a pack rat.

Now that we have that settled, we can move on.

One of my grandsons is deeply into the Star Wars universe. He loves all things Star Wars, even LEGO Star Wars. Guess what? Grandma collected Star Wars memorabilia in the day. My grandson and the rest of his family will be visiting during Christmas break, and I thought I’d surprise him with some of my treasures from that Galaxy Far, Far Away.

So I went hunting for my Star Wars stuff. In the family room cupboards. In the catchall room (treadmill, sports gear, kids toys, arts and crafts, and that old standby miscellaneous). Last, but not least, in my office closet (the location of Earth’s Black Hole—where things go in, never to be seen again).

In the family room cupboard, I found a “Destroy the Death Star” board game. I bought for my sons when they were young. It’s in very good shape, except for being missing two tiny X-Wing Fighter game pieces.

In the catchall room, I found a poster from LucasFilm in its original cardboard mailing tube. Apparently, I forgot about framing it, or forgot about it altogether (more likely).

In the black hole—my office closet—I liberated a few more treasures: an intact die cast Millennium Falcon, a slightly damaged die cast Imperial Destroyer (missing Princess Leia’s starship), a Star Wars report folder, and a book of Star Wars iron-on transfers of all the original Star Wars characters. (Was Harrison Ford ever that young? Wow.)

The Star Wars hunt yielded other forgotten treasures. I rediscovered individual Star Trek episode slides that I bought at a convention, several Hallmark Star Trek Christmas tree ornaments, and three aging Star Trek computer games and compendiums for PCs that cannot work on my MacBook Pro and so are now useless to me. I also uncovered a Raiders of the Lost Ark movie theater poster.

Probably the coolest and most valuable forgotten hidden treasure finds were two signed prints of cover art by the late Frank “Kelly” Freas, the acknowledged dean of science fiction illustrators. (His illustrations of the cast of characters from the original Star Trek series are in The Smithsonian.) The prints I have are of the illustrations for “The Ark of Mars” by Leigh Brackett in Planet Stories, September 1953, and for The Warriors of Dawn by M.A. Foster, DAW Book No. 135.

I was a volunteer at a science fiction convention I attended some years ago. The job I drew was to pick up the guests of honor at the airport and drive them to the con. Since I possessed the only car that was clean and in working order, I had the privilege of chauffeuring Kelly Freas, his wife, and SF author Frederick Pohl for the entire weekend. I heard lots of great stories about Science Fiction’s Golden Age while in that driver’s seat, and we all had a rollicking good time together. I bought the two prints and asked Kelly to sign them for me. He did better than that; he inscribed them. One he inscribed for me “with warmest regards,” and inscribed the other for me “with affection and appreciation.”

Those prints are more than mere collector’s items and you can believe I won’t lose track of them again. I’m going to have them framed and hang them on my office wall so there won’t be any danger of them becoming hidden treasures ever again.

And now, with the exception of the prints and the Star Wars items for my grandson, I have to put the rest of this stuff back where I found it. O joy.

Firstborn and his Little Brother informed me in no uncertain terms that neither of them, their wives, their progeny, or their dogs, wanted to inherit my Star Trek collection. They urged me to sell it on eBay post haste. I suspected their need for speed was fueled by their fear that I might meet an untimely end before unloading the collection, and then they would be tasked to do so following my demise.

I could hardly blame them, understanding mother that I am. I dreaded selling the collection myself. So, I did what I usually do under similar circumstances. I procrastinated, and procrastinated again, and again, and again.

I shouldn’t have. The second ST: TNG feature film was much better than the first. Actually, it was pretty good. It made me feel I was too hasty in abandoning the Trek universe. Guilt gripped me, along with its close friend misguided loyalty. I decided to hang onto the collection.

Wrong. The next ST: TNG film was so-so. The fourth and last was a creative and box-office disaster that all but slaughtered Paramount’s Star Trek cash cow. I packed my collection in a huge carton, determined to find it a new home. I would have done so, but I couldn’t seem to find the time to do that and write. Writing won out.

Not long afterward, a series of unforeseen obstacles hindered my resolve to end my Star Trek obsession and dispose of the collection that had become my personal albatross.

First, a cousin surprised me with the gift of a Star Trek collector plate depicting a scene from the “Amok Time” second season episode in which Kirk and Spock engaged in pon farr mortal combat. Drat. I had hoped to offer him my collection, but it seemed my cousin decided to rid himself of his collection, did not equivocate as I did, and he beat me to the draw. Double drat. That presented me with one more item to hoard. I hadn’t started, and I was already losing ground. Triple drat.

Next, I began watching the hilarious Big Bang Theory. Every other line of nerdy dialog seemed to contain the words Star Trek or Mr. Spock. How could I turn my back on Star Trek with that weekly reminder? The hysterically funny “Tiny Spock” episode really got to me because I adored Mr. Spock. (I adored Captain Kirk too. I never said I wasn’t fickle.) Big Bang Theory made me realize I wasn’t ready to part with my collection. Auctioning it off on eBay would have to wait a while longer.

Then I began following George Takei on Facebook. Oh, my-y-y. Here we go again.

Two new Star Trek films that reinvented the Trek universe burst onto the scene and captured my imagination. Rats! Hooked again.

When I was forced to declutter my home office not long ago, I found William Shatner’s autograph. It was more than a signature on a scrap of paper. The Shat touched that scrap of paper. It might even contain his younger self’s DNA. ::sigh, drool:: I was overwhelmed by nostalgia, and not a little lust for his younger self, so I boldly went ahead and framed it.

Recently, one of Macho Guy’s nephews—a young writer I mentor—thanked me for my support by giving me a Tribble. You know, one of those little fur balls from “The Trouble With Tribbles” episode. Yes, I have my very own Tribble, dang it. The Tribble joined The Shat’s framed autograph on a shelf in my office right above my desk.

That was the tipping point, the point at which I surrendered and acknowledged that I am powerless over the lure of Star Trek. Resistance is futile. Unless someone out there saves me from myself by taking my collection off my hands, I may never be free of Star Trek’s hold on me. It’s kind of like being in a Star Trek mafia. Once you’re in, they don’t let you out. Ever. That is, not until you join The Great Bird of the Galaxy among the stars.

I believe Michael Corleone said it best in Godfather III: “Just when I thought I was out…they pull me back in.”

You and me both, Michael. You and me both.

The root of my hesitation problem is a little voice in my head that says: “You don’t have to waste money hiring someone to do this; you can manage by yourself if you try hard enough.” At other times, the niggling little voice says: “Are you sure you’re right about that?”

That little voice in my head is my late mother’s voice, intoned to evoke endless guilt, which did not pass over to the other side when she did. Instead, it took up residence in my subconscious where its main function is to promote doubt, waffling, and self-loathing should I ever decide something in my own self-interest.

One memorable time when I heard this voice, Mom was alive then and chastising me for selfishly thinking of hiring a part-time cleaning lady to help out after we enlarged our small raised ranch home with a sizable two-story addition. I was tempted to remind her that she had help cleaning her apartment—two young daughters that she pressed into service and paid them deep, deep, deeply below minimum wage—but that would have opened another can of guilt.

In this particular instance however, I must point out in my own defense that dear old Mom never owned or operated a computer or tried to maintain a wireless network, all the while keeping Macho Guy [aka Mr. Kiss of Death to Computers] from complicating matters further by booting up his laptop. So there.

I admitted defeat after two long, drawn out and excruciating weeks of failure after failure. Regrettably, I called in the Geeks to save my cyberbutt. I say regrettably because that meant I had to declutter my home office ahead of my usual semi-annual purge so the Geek Squad Agent could gain entrance without using a machete or a flamethrower. Drat.

All is well now, wirelessly and clutterwise, but something unexpected occurred during the unscheduled, last minute clutter purge. While sorting through stacks of unopened envelopes and piles of unfiled papers, I turned over a tiny scrap of wrinkled graph paper and discovered a lost treasure. I didn’t want to lose track of it again, so I framed it.

Before I tell you the story behind this lost treasure, it must be understood that I was and am a devoted fan of the original Star Trek series. I never missed an episode. When NBC threatened to cancel it, I wrote a scathing letter demanding that it remain on the air. NBC acceded to my demand. When NBC moved Star Trek to a night when I had a late evening grad school class, I paid my Baby Sister to watch the first fifteen minutes so she could tell me what was happening once I arrived home. I was that mad about Star Trek.

Flash forward a year. Macho Guy and I were married, he was still in the Army, and we lived in Kentucky on base. My Baby Sister and her then fiancé visited us for a week. Macho Guy and I drove them to the Cincinnati airport when they left for home. We had lunch on the way—burgers with the works, including raw onion slices. [This is an important detail.]

While milling through the airport, I spotted a very handsome man walking across the concourse. He reminded me of someone I knew. Hmmm. Who was he? Where had I seen him before? I pointed him out to my Baby Sister.

ME: See that good-looking guy over there?

BABY SISTER: Where?

ME: That one. Straight ahead. [I pointed in his direction.] The good-looking one with the brown hair—with the pointy sideburns.

BABY SISTER: Oh. Okay.

ME: [Gasping for breath] Pointy sideburns? Oh. My. God. That’s WILLIAM SHATNER!!!

BABY SISTER: Who?

ME: William Shatner. William Shatner. Captain Kirk on Star Trek. William Shatner, that’s who.

BABY SISTER: So what?

ME: [Digging in my bag for pen and paper] So, I’m going to ask him for his autograph, that’s what.

BABY SISTER: Are you sure it’s him?

ME: [Hesitating a bit] I’m…I’m pretty sure. It looks just like him. It has to be him.

BABY SISTER: You’ll make a fool of yourself if it’s not him.

ME: [Hesitating again] Well…if he’s just a lookalike, he’s probably used to being asked for his autograph, don’t you think?

BABY SISTER: Yeah, but if it really is him, do you want to embarrass yourself by going up to him with that onion breath and asking for his autograph?

ME: [Exhaling into my palm and hesitating yet again] Damn. That’s really bad. It would be embarrassing.

BABY SISTER: [Nodding] Besides, it can’t be him. Think about it. If he’s such a big TV star, what’s he doing in Cincinnati?

ME: [Hesitating for the final time, I shrugged and sighed as I watched the handsome lookalike disappear from sight.] Right. I guess it couldn’t be him.

A few days later, I received a letter from Baby Sister. A tiny scrap of graph paper floated out when I unfolded her letter, but I didn’t notice something was written on it at first. I read the letter:

Dear Sissy,

Guess what? You were right. It was Bill Baby, and he was on our flight. My darling fiancé went over to him, talked to him, and he got Bill Baby’s autograph for you. All he had on him was a pad of graph paper, and so Bill Baby asked him if he was an accountant. He was really nice. I guess you should have asked for his autograph after all.

Love,

Your Adorable Baby Sister

I was right? She guesses that I should have asked him for his autograph after all? She was the one who talked me out of it, and then she has the colossal nerve to call my William Shatner Bill Baby!

I dropped the letter and turned the scrap of graph paper over. There it was—William Shatner’s autograph. The autograph I could have asked for myself if my Baby Sister hadn’t been channeling our mother and made me hesitate and doubt myself. She who hesitates . . . damn.

I ran into the bedroom, put a pillow over my face and screamed into it. I could have met William Shatner face to face. I could have shaken his hand. I could have thrown myself into his arms and hugged the living Trek out of him. I might even have planted a kiss on him. Uh, maybe not that—damn raw onion. My hands began to shake as my thoughts turned homicidal—no, fratricidal. I wanted to kill my Baby Sister.

I thought I had forgiven her after all these years, but rediscovering that lost treasure brought back the fury and resentment I felt for allowing my Baby Sister to talk me out of asking William Shatner—The Shat—for his autograph. It seems I’m feeling fratricidal again.

I think I’ll invite her here for a visit—without hesitation.

I was diagnosed with colon cancer. I was cured. I was well aware that cancer is serious business.

During the colonoscopy that I had four years ago this month, my gastroenterologist Dr. S found a low-lying cecal polyp that could not be removed easily and would require surgery.  She took photos and two biopsies instead.  When I heard the word biopsies, I figured she suspected it was cancerous. She called me early the next morning—yes, that soon—with the biopsy results:  diagnosis of malignancy—a tubulovillous adenoma with high-grade dysplasia consistent with intramucosal carcinoma. The only good news was that the cancer was stage one. We caught it early. Dr. S mailed the lab results and photos of the cancerous polyp to me.

Doctors will tell you that maintaining a positive attitude is essential to a successful recovery from a serious illness, so I elected to be immensely positive. I wouldn’t let cancer define who I was or how I lived my life. I figured if I could laugh at Big C, it had no power over me. I cracked silly and darkly humorous jokes about my condition, and I watched lots of funny films and TV shows that made me laugh—and laughing made me feel better. People cope with life-threatening illnesses like cancer in different ways. My way was somewhat unorthodox, but it worked for me. True, it’s not the way the average person would normally deal with cancer, but hey, I never claimed to be normal.

After I received the photos of the cancerous cecal pole polyp, I emailed a friend who shares my screwball sense of humor.

ME: It’s definitely cancer. My gastroenterologist sent me a sheet of photos of the polyp–in living color.

FRIEND: Are you going to frame it and hang it on your living room wall?

ME: No, I was thinking Christmas cards. I could superimpose tinsel on the polyp.

FRIEND: Don’t do that. I have a great Christmas wreath graphic that you could put around the polyp.

ME: Even better. Thanks!

[You will no doubt be relieved to know that I decided against the “Merry Polyp” cards and sent out a Christmas newsletter instead.]

When I consulted Dr. C, one of the surgeons I interviewed and the one I eventually selected, he offered robotic assisted surgery as an option. (The doctor sits at a console and controls the robot’s movements as it performs the surgery.) I hadn’t heard of robotic assisted surgery before, but I’m a long-time science fiction fan so naturally I thought it was completely and fabulously cool. My immediate response was, “You mean you have R2-D2 assisting you in the operating room?” I elected to have the robotic assisted surgery, of course.

I was certain from that point on that The Force was with me.  In fact, I made sure of it. I visited my pastor to receive the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick.  I felt better having God in my corner for this fight.

You shouldn’t be surprised to learn about that. Despite evidence to the contrary, I do have a serious side–as in Serious Whimsy. Get it? Serious Whimsy? Oh, well.  Never mind.

At the last critique group meeting before my surgery, the girls toasted to a successful surgery for me. I responded: “The condemned ate a hearty last meal of chips, salsa and margaritas.” Not exactly true. I feasted on steak quesadillas too, and it obviously wasn’t my last meal—or my last margarita.

I had a CT scan prior to the surgery to ascertain if there was cancer anywhere else in my body—thankfully, there was none.  I had to drink two bottles of barium beforehand.  It wasn’t the tastiest drink I ever had, but compared to the colonoscopy prep, it was downright delicious.

Without question, the prep is the worst part of the colonoscopy procedure. Mankind landed astronauts on the moon. Mankind built an international space station that orbits the Earth. Mankind has yet to develop a bowel prep solution that tastes good. Really?

Medical researchers need to find a better way to clean a colon out—a way that doesn’t involve gagging down gallons of vile-tasting, nauseating liquids and scurrying to the porcelain facility every ten minutes.  Eww.  You know what would be fantastic?  If we had a working matter transporter like the one on Star Trek’s Enterprise, we could set the transport coordinates to the interior of the colon and beam the poop into outer space where it would freeze and become tiny asteroids.  No fuss, no muss, no prep, no poop!

On the morning of my surgery, when Macho Guy and Dr. C met for the first time, I introduced Dr. C as Robby the Robot’s brother. Macho Guy cleared his throat and said it must be the drugs talking. A definite possibility; I was feeling no pain at that moment. I also said I was looking forward to meeting the robot, but the anesthetist dashed my hopes. He said I would meet the robot but because of the anesthesia drugs dripping from a tube into my bloodstream, I wouldn’t remember anything about it when I regained consciousness. He was right, dang it. After the surgery, he told me that we had a chat about what I was writing at the moment and that I got to see and ask numerous questions about the robot. I remembered none of it. Bummer.

The good news I received was that the cancer hadn’t spread; I had a surgical cure (no chemotherapy or radiation necessary). Also, I only had small poke-hole scars on my abdomen that eventually disappeared. The bad news was that I had to have annual colonoscopies from then on.

I went back to Dr. S the next year for a follow up colonoscopy. I asked her a question that seemed perfectly logical and sensible to me:  “Since part of my colon is missing and you have less to examine, shouldn’t I be entitled to a discount?” I’m still waiting for that discount . . .