What If?

Most people who know me probably wonder on a regular basis: “How does your mind work?”

The answer is: I don’t know. Creatively?

Could be my lava lamp-like mind is the result of too much time spent researching the obscure and unusual, reading books about criminal profiling, playing the What If? game to unfair advantage with friends, or maybe it’s a product of being raised by The Colonel.

In any case, it’s a well-established fact among my poops (see how I did that? Poops, not peeps, 'cause poops are funny) that my train frequently jumps the tracks to arrive at alternate destinations.

Poops are funny :)

 What ifs in my world are not uncommon. They are to be expected.

For example, a couple of months ago while walking to lunch with Erina, we passed a middle-aged woman singing hymns in front of the Peachtree Center Marta Station. (Incidentally, she was still there singing on our way back to work an hour later – and again when I left to catch the bus at 5:00 pm.) Local loonies in downtown Atlanta are not unusual.

My mind began composing imaginary scenarios featuring Singing Hymn Lady proudly belting out Holy, Holy, Holy in church and what would happen if she just kept singing? The congregation finishes the last stanza and sits down, but she just keeps going, rocking Holy, Holy, Holy for all it’s worth? The minister would probably interrupt, “Thank you, Ms. Jones, thank you very much. You can sit down now.” But Ms. Jones won’t quit. She is going to keep singing NO MATTER WHAT! Even when it becomes uncomfortable for the other parishioners. Even when the minister shouts over her to stop singing.

Farting in church would take a backseat to the awkwardness this woman would cause.

She just won't stop. The minister eventually loses his temper. He starts yelling at her to sit down. Shut up! Stop singing! Though by all accounts the minister is a holy man, he is still human, after all, and fallible. He might slip and shout a few curses, and if he does, would his utterance be considered Holy shit? or just the regular kind?

Poops are funny :)

These are the types of tangential thoughts that occupy my mind periodically.

Which brings me to another really cool What If? that came to me yesterday.

The train of thought kicked off at the Swift-Cantrell Dog Park and ended up at freaky fun-stop in the distant dystopia of Theriomopolis – the subject of my current novel-in-progress, an urban fantasy tentatively titled Nature of the Beast.

To understand fully (good luck with that, BTW) you’ll probably want to read the synopsis first.

While watching my dogs Finn and Sookie take advantage of the off-leash acreage to run around the chasing tennis balls, tails, and each other, I composed a new scene for the book in which detectives Elaine Butcher and Ignatius John Henry shapeshift into animals at the dog park to catch some exercise.

But imagine how funny it would be if people really acted like dogs?

No, really…

Would this type of behavior be referred to as Barking Mad?