I think everyone is pretty much in agreement that I cannot be serious for more than five minutes. I’m the idiot who had to walk out of my grandfather’s funeral because I started laughing. And no, I was not laughing because my grandfather was dead, thank you very much. I started laughing because the Grim Reapers of Kentucky motor cycle gang came to the funeral. They just walked on in wearing their leather-and-chains motor cycle clothes and lined up to sign the guest book. No, my grandfather wasn’t in a motor cycle gang and we still kind of don’t know why those people came. Ditto my ex-sister-in-law coming, but I’m glad she did. Then three women who were literally at the wrong funeral showed up, only they didn’t have the good sense to leave. It all just got to be too much funny at one time and I had to step out to the parking lot and laugh it off for a while.

But someone at work decided I would be the most excellent choice of reporter to interview a real live NASA rocket scientist. I think he’s actually an engineer or something, but that is nowhere near as funny as calling him a rocket scientist. Rocket engineer doesn’t work for me. It makes me think he’s going to wear a striped cap and blow the whistle while driving the rocket.

Believe it or not, I can actually pretend to be a grown-up professional person for as many as five minutes at a time, but sadly, this interview took eight minutes and that left me three minutes to turn stupid on him. I really was okay for those first few minutes, but then he told me about the book he had written on being prepared for emergency situations like earthquakes and terrorist attacks.

ME: Does your book tell me how to be prepared for the zombie apocalypse everyone keeps talking about? Should I have really good shoes on, for example?

NASA PhD: No, it doesn’t. Because my book is actually very serious and zombies are not serious.

ME: (that’s-what-you-think eye rolling) Oh. What about how everyone’s saying our planet is going to slam into Planet X and blow us up? Are there any guidelines in your book for being ready for a planetary impact?

NASA PhD: The things you read on the Internet about Planet X aren’t real.

ME: How would you know?

NASA PhD: I work for NASA.

ME: (extra-effort eye rolling) I answered telephones at an escort service back in college, but that doesn’t make me a blow job expert.

NASA PhD: You did?

ME: Well, no. But if I had been the girl who just answered the phone, I still wouldn’t know diddly about actually diddling anyone. Forget it. What about how we’re all gonna die when the Mayan calendar expires?

NASA PhD: No, I don’t talk about that either.

ME: So what exactly does the price of your book help me live through?

NASA PhD: Well, earthquakes…

ME: Did it.

NASA PhD: Tornadoes…

ME: This is Alabama. Our babies are born with the tornado siren ringing in their tiny ears.

NASA PhD: A cruise ship capsizing…

ME: I can swim.

NASA PhD: Forest fire.

ME: Duh, I just told you I can swim.

NASA PhD: What?

ME: Nothing. So pretty much your book just tells me how to survive stuff that people have been surviving for a long time. And there’s nothing new like how to remove your own alien probe device and use it as a weapon to fight off the alien guard and get off the mother ship?

NASA PhD: Which news outlet do you write for again?

ME: Don’t worry about that. Trust me, you’ll sound way smart when I type this up.

NASA PhD: I was way smart before we started this interview. After spending eight minutes talking to you, I’m not so sure about that anymore.

ME: You’re the one who said it, not me, buddy.

Since he really was trying to be a professional and not lose his temper with the idiot who was interviewing him, he did offer to send me a copy of his book so I could read it and understand more about what it is he’s trying to do with this book of his but all I heard was, “I’m gonna send you a free book.” Cha-ching! I know he’s only being nice because he secretly hopes I really do know a lot about blow jobs.

UPDATE: Sadly, the whole Planet X thing has now been debunked. Thanks for sucking the fun out of conspiracy theories, NASA.