A Good Believer
“This essay is a humorous, I hope, commentary about the nature of belief. It's very meaningful to me because I read it at an 826LA open mic - the first time I did an open mic.”
I’ve always been a believer. I don’t know if it’s genetic or what, but as far back as I can remember, long before I could read, write, or receive signals from other galaxies with the undetectable antennae in my brain, I was able to believe anything people told me. Big or small, it didn’t matter - I could keep the faith.
It’s easy to forget, but when you’re a kid, you’re told to believe in a lot of things. And I believed all of it. Like Jesus, as soon as I was told to believe in him - I did. 100%. Still do. When I was told to believe in the ideals of America - I did. Immediately. All the way. You should hear me sing the National Anthem at a Dodgers Game. Full volume. Full belief.
But, if I had to pick my favorite thing, of all the things, that I was told to believe in as a kid - I’d have to go with Santa. After all, believing in him got me presents. Don’t get me wrong, eternal salvation and a right to liberty are great… but I prefer presents.
The whole belief thing served me really well until I was about twelve, that’s when adults started talking about proof. Suddenly, you weren’t supposed to believe everything you were told. You were supposed to question things.
This I wasn’t good at. Especially when it came to Santa.
To make things even worse, everyone else was good at it. I mean, it seemed like overnight all the kids in my class just decided that Santa, his reindeer, and his elves were ridiculous. But Jesus and the America thing - those were still good. I didn’t get that. Santa gave presents. Why would you question the one belief that gave you presents?
You better believe I didn’t. Nope, I stayed strong and, despite what everyone else was doing, kept believing in Mr. Kringle. And I kept getting presents. It was awesome.
Which is why, when my parents decided waiting in long lines at the mall so their tween son could meet Santa was a waste of a Saturday, I didn’t let it stop me. I just started taking the bus to the mall to see the big guy on my own. And did I keep getting presents? You bet your ass I did. Was it still awesome? You bet your ass it was!
It was the year I turned fourteen that it stopped being awesome. That was the year kids from my class saw me at the mall, waiting in line for Santa. I could have lied of course. I could have pretended I was holding a place in line for my little sister (who doesn’t exist), or being ironic (a concept I don’t really understand), but belief doesn’t work that way. A true believer doesn’t deny their faith - they proclaim it. And so that’s what I did:
“I am in line to see Santa. Who I believe in,” I told my classmates.
It didn’t go over very well. From that day forward, everyone at school made fun of me. A lot.
They called me crazy.
But, like all persecuted believers, my faith only grew. The more they made fun of me, the more I believed in Jolly Old Saint Nick. In fact, I believed in him so confidently, that on that Christmas Eve, when I heard a thump outside my bedroom late at night, I didn’t call my parents or 911. I rushed out of my house screaming with belief, “Merry Christmas Santa!”
…that’s when the aliens abducted me.
I bet you didn’t see that coming. I sure as hell didn’t.
Of course, I didn’t know right away what was happening. At first, when the alien blasted me with its paralyzing ray, I just thought, “Wow, Santa is grey and he has no mouth, weird.” Next, when the alien’s robots attached transport bracelets to me I thought, “maybe these are elves, maybe Santa has updated his operation!” And when I was lifted up to the flying saucer by levitation beams, I thought, “so that’s what a magic sleigh looks like!”
Then they started to anally probe me. That’s when I knew it wasn’t Santa. Santa doesn’t probe the anus.
I won’t bore you with all the details, but long story short, on Christmas morning I woke up naked in the middle of a corn field in Iowa. With no presents. It wasn’t awesome.
You may have heard about it. It made the news. I even gave a few interviews. You know, maybe I was being naive, but I really thought people would believe me. Even the people who didn’t have my propensity for belief. “After all,” I thought, “this isn’t a leap of faith. I have a bunch of alien tech imbedded in my body. I feel it every time I blink! What more proof could people need?”
Unfortunately, it turns out that alien tech is pretty undetectable by human tech, which rendered my “proof” no more definitive than a few cookie crumbs and half-empty glass of milk. And so, once again, everyone called me crazy.
One good thing about being made fun of for believing in Santa for all those years, is it was good practice for being made fun of for believing in aliens in the following decades. It really allowed me to keep my head up, stay positive, and believe better days were coming.
I still do.
Though, if I’m honest, I do wish I could stop believing in aliens. It sure would make life easier. But I guess I’m just destined to be a believer, because no matter what I manage to convince myself in the new year, the aliens track me down on Christmas Eve and prove their existence, over and over, by probing the hell out of me, then leaving me in that cornfield.
Every year it’s the same thing. Well, there was one year where the farmer who owns the cornfield waited for me on Christmas morning with a shotgun, called me crazy, then shot me in the leg. That was different.
Anyway, I used to talk about it more. To friends, therapists, law enforcement… but it didn’t make a difference. None of them turned out to be any good at believing. So now, when I get back after my yearly abduction, I just tell people I was on vacation and leave out the anal probing. It’s easier.
I considered speaking up last week when I received that really scary message about the aliens latest plans. But I thought better of it. You’d all just call me crazy.
And I get it. With all the charlatans and monsters and non-human entities spreading lies online, you’d have to be crazy not to question everything you hear. These days blind belief is downright dangerous and to demand proof just makes sense.
But at the same time, just because belief is dangerous, doesn’t make proof safe.
My point is this: just be careful looking for proof. You may not like what you find, where you find it, or what part of your body it’s up.
Believe me.
