“Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling the transmission.” This useful advice comes direct from sci-fi series “The Outer Limits,” which would have been scary when it ran in 1963.
I discovered reruns on YouTube, amazed at each full hour of drawn-out stories and limited special effects, from visible wire holding up the UFOs to monsters wearing zip-up costumes. Loved it!
For some “unearthly” reason, I compared relationships and marriage to the Outer Limits, that far away galaxy where dating stops and a phase with one solitary star begins.
Take you: when young, you’re free-wheeling star matter, spreading your gases in wild abandon, preferably with the cute stars who have great biceps and large . . . solar systems.
Then it happens, a meteoric fireball of sorts and you collide with that special star. Suddenly you can’t imagine a world where you aren’t orbiting around each other, the gravity too strong to pull apart.
You know it’s love when you stop spending money on expensive cosmetics and start buying toss cushions and area rugs. And where you once worried about finding the money for rock concert tickets, today you’re shopping for life insurance and learning about mortgage rates. Until now, premiums and amortization calculators fell in the category of yawn, bo-ring.
Enlarge your universe with a little nebula of your own? Paint the stellar nursery in cosmic colors now that you’re a couple?
Maybe you will, since your ovaries are controlling the transmission, if you happen to be a woman.
That works for some, those of you anxious to buy maternity smocks as your solar mass flares. Me, I wore an invisible flak jacket because in my constellation, the cataclysmic moment never arrived and I’ve remained one uncharted black hole.
Sure, I enjoy a Big Bang with my partner every now and then, but that hasn’t resulted in a new nebula. Instead, we’ve remained happy binary stars. We’ve chosen to spend our eternity figuring out how to survive the eclipses that occur when diverse genders share the same galaxy. It’s been a ride!
At some point we decided to leave well enough alone.
After all, there’s enough competition over the TV remotes.
