I saw a drone over my mother’s house, and I say that despite knowing how silly it sounds. If you’re leaving your mother’s house on a dark winter night after eating some tortellini, and you cross paths with a low-flying drone flashing green on one side, and it’s 10 times bigger than the one you gave your nephew so you have to rule him out even though he lives across the creek, what do you do? I stopped the car and told Bean to look. (Every time I ask her, she confirms the sighting. “Bean, what did you see in the sky that night when we had dinner at Yaya’s?” “A drone.” But I must have told her it was a drone at the time, plus I’ve already brainwashed her in a thousand different cultish ways, so let’s call her an unreliable witness, which makes a total of two in this story.) 

I didn’t mention the drone sighting to anyone until the next day, because I had feelings about it. Guilt because I’d continued to drive home after seeing a strange, malevolently-lit object drifting toward my mother’s house. And sheepishness because I don’t usually identify as someone who jumps on a bandwagon with people from New Jersey. Seeing a viral drone is so off-brand for me that I’ve turned up here to think it through. How do I wrestle this UFO back to the ground? Why am I so reluctant to be part of a mystery? When I told Matt, he said to call the cops. A week later, consider this my report. 

Mysteries don’t appeal to me. I rarely light candles or go outside at night. If there were aliens puttering around in the sky, I’d hope they’d seek out someone more interesting. But all the U.S. sightings make me feel like I have to share mine. I’m not part of a scene that thinks weird, cool stuff can happen. I’m not high above it either. Maybe I just have somewhere to get to, like in that poem where the flying boy crashes to earth and no one cares, particularly. I have bills, maps, laundry. It’s a luxury to maintain an atmosphere of personal magic. I try to outsource it to my kid as much as possible.

This is a disappointing way to respond to a drone. The objects won’t come for me again.