Stress Test

Tension is who you think you should be.  Relaxation is who you are.
-Unknown

I went to the Denver psychic fair this weekend and while walking down one of the aisles a voice call  to me asking me if I was stressed out.  I replied, "No, I just ate." and stopped to look at the speaker.  He turned out to be a smiling young man wearing a red polo shirt.  He then asked me if I wanted to take a stress test.  I hesitated, on the brink of say no, and then said OK. He motioned me to sit down and sat across from me and that is when I noticed the word Dianetics written in black on his shirt right over his heart.  My first instinct was to get up right then and walk away but I thought what the hell and remained seated.  Then I looked in his eyes and what I saw there was a bit disturbing to me. I had seen that look before but could not place it.  Again I suppressed the urge to get up and walk away.

He handed me two aluminum tubes about six to eight inches long that looked like they came from a large wind chime.  Each one was attached to a wire which connected to a machine that I knew was called an e-meter.   I was curious about the e-meter because I knew it played a large part in  Scientology.  I was also very surprised by how cheesy the e-meter looked.  It was made of a 1980s style plastic which reminded me of  a  Texas Instruments hand-held calculator from that time period. The machine itself made me think of the  rock-em-sock-em robots game from the 1960s. I know that doesn't make any sense as the e-meter has gauges and dials but that's what I thought when I first looked at it.

The young man told me to hold the wind chimes lightly and then asked me to think of something that was stressful to me.  I looked at the meter and watched the gauge needle peg out.  The young man asked what I was I thinking about and I said all the people at the fair.
 And that made me stressful?
No, I  was just sensitive to all the energy surrounding me.  He remarked that that was very perceptive of me as he fiddled with one of the knobs on the e-meter.

Through all this I had been kind of playing with the wind chimes, holding them lightly, squeezing them tightly, or lifting them up and moving them around all the while watching the e-meter.  Every time I moved or twitched the gauge needle pegged out.  I banged the tubes  together. The young man asked me to just sit still and hold on to the tubes lightly as he once again fiddled with one of the knobs.  I complied and he asked me to think of anything in my life that was stressful to me.  I thought, could not think of anything,  and looked at the gauge needle.  It did not move.   I looked at the young man and then, still unsettled by the look in his eyes, looked away. 

The young man then asked me to think about something that was stressful at work.  I looked at the gauge needle and, again, it pegged out.  
What about work was stressful?
I told him I did not work. 
He thought a second and then asked, What about not working was stressful?

I stared at him.  Those eyes. I had enough and told him I was getting bored with this and handed the tubes back to him.  He took them with what felt to me like relief and I got up and walked away.   As I did I realized where I had see those eyes before, Tom Cruise.  Tom Cruise had the same look in his eyes.