Flowers & Spies

What do flowers and spies have in common? Nothing really. Unless you’re me.

Sometimes my active imagination gets me into trouble and I blame books, mostly because it’s convenient for me to do so. I start thinking what if? And when then? It starts to get a little dangerous when I start thinking: when the aliens invade, then we should . . . call me crazy. Like really. Because while I find it funny to read about people mocking the zombie apocalypse, another part of me is planning an In the Event of a Zombie Invasion Emergency Plan. My active imagination just can’t seem to help it.

An example of how fiction gets me into trouble in real life: One day, very recently, my husband and I were both home, and I received a phone call. The person leaves a message, I check it and it’s Jana from a floral shop. She wants to know if we’ll be home today because she has a “delivery”.

My first thought . . . Spies are coming to kill us. Completely insane, right? By the time I listened to the message, I had constructed a whole storyline out of it. Obviously this “florist” is on a secret mission to blow up our house while we’re inside (apparently, spies need to call first to make sure their targets are home). My husband is a secret agent and his cover’s been blown (I’m 97% sure my husband isn’t a secret agent. But no one will ever convince me to give up that last 3%. Mr. & Mrs. Smith taught me well).

I’m sitting and looking at the phone, thinking . . . man, I do not have time to get blown up today. But I also know that if I tell my husband he’ll give me that look. You know, the look you all probably made when I told you that a florist called and my first thought was spies are coming to kill us. Yeah, it’s the look that says you’re crazy and also how did I get into this marriage in the first place? Knowing I couldn’t tell my husband what I was really thinking, (Because I try to censor at least 50% of my crazy in a bid for him to think I’m more normal than I actually am. I don’t think it works, but we both live with our own delusions), I braved the situation and called the florist. She was very nice and said she’d be there soon.

She delivered the flowers and our house didn’t blow up. (Yet.)

She probably wasn’t a spy. (That we know of.)

She wouldn’t appreciate being called a spy. (Unless she’s a real spy.)

My husband would roll his eyes if he read this story. (Stop giving me that look, husband.)

Have you ever taken something super mundane and then spun it so you were so stressed out you couldn’t even handle it? Or am I the only crazy out there with an overactive imagination . . .

Kinley Baker (@kinleybaker)