I MAKE ONE FINAL PROTEST TO THE NASA PSYCHOLOGIST BEFORE BEING HURLED INTO SPACE

I got this job mostly because I didn’t want it.

The National Anarchist Space Administration, as an indefatigable champion of fairness in space exploration but also suspicious of the ulterior motives of people who volunteer to go on space missions, determined through committee that the best first person to send to Mars would be the person who least wanted to go.

And that person was me.

I tried to explain, over and again, that I could not go to Mars because I had to go to the grocery store on Tuesday mornings when it was the least busy. Otherwise I would have to suffer understocked shelves and long lines, both. And I buy a very specific snack dip that tends to sell out quickly, and the grocery store that I like tends to restock it on Monday nights.

But NASA wouldn’t hear any of it.

They kept telling me, “Look, everybody else wants to go. All the people who stock the shelves at the grocery store would love to go. The people who make that dip would love to go. You are the only person in the database who does not want to go, so it has to be you.” So I said, “Look, I take it back, it was all a lie. I really want to be the first person on Mars. Please, please pick me,” and they said, “Nope! Too late. We’re onto your ruse. We already know you’d rather be on the hunt for novelty dips.”

And they were absolutely correct.

I understand, too, that the things that tend to scare us the most likely aren’t rational, which is exactly what makes them so scary, that our deepest fears are really, mostly, just fear of the unknown. I learned that in a class on evolutionary biology. But sometimes something is really scary and completely rational, like leaving for Mars and then by the time I get back they’re not even going to be making that dip anymore. I could make my own version by eyeballing the recipe based on the list of ingredients on the label, but what the fuck exactly is “guar gum” and “soy lecithin” and are they even commercially available to someone like me?

And I would still have to do a lot of experiments before I got any of it even close to the same.

I also told them that I have a parrot I need to take care of, and they said, “Oh, that’s OK, parrots tend to live a long time and we can find someone to take care of the parrot for you,” so then I also had to find a parrot because the parrot was a lie. And unless they found a proper ornithologist as a pet sitter, that person is going to be really surprised when they find out my parrot is a dyed chicken, because it certainly came as a shock to me. And I still don’t know what chickens eat but I assume it’s generally something more substantial than snack dips, so it is even more imperative for me to be available Tuesday morning to go to the grocery store.

But most of all, if I’m in space, I don’t see how I’m ever going to find someone to love.