Welcome to the Dark Side, Mom

When I was little, one of the scariest movies I saw was the one where the kid sees a flying saucer land over the hill and then every adult in town starts acting strangely. (I was so young when I saw it at the drive-in, I can't even remember the name, though I do remember that they re-made it badly later, and I saw that one on cable and it didn't scare me at all. And IMDB is not being psychic today, curse it. So forgive me for the verbose description. )

Anyway, the wacked-out adults all have the creepy little dots on the back of their necks, little grey dots that glistened like mercury. And I know I could totally see the strings on the flying saucer, and the hill was clearly made out of paster of Paris and, like, tissue paper, and I know the whole movie was meant to be some larger metaphor about Communism, but the absolute worst part (which had me waking up from my own recurring version for years) was when the kid realizes at the breakfast table that just above his father's neatly starched collar is . . . a grey dot. At which point, the kid loses his mind.

So, yesterday's conversation goes a little something like this:

Seren's mother: Have you seen this show, Deadwood ?

Seren: Uh, no. No pay cable channels in my personal ghetto. Have you?

Seren's mother: The language --

Seren: Yeah, I heard it's rough.

Seren's mother: No -- well, yes -- but it's like . . . Shakespeare.

Grey dot, people. Grey. Dot.