I was visited by aliens yesterday.
They came right up to my front door and knocked on it. I answered. There they were. These aliens and their spaceship, all shiny and glowing behind them. I was a little scared, but at the same time I was really excited because, well, you know…. aliens, man.
I invited them in, and they said yes, so they came in and sat down and I offered them some coffee and they said that would be lovely. I asked them what they took in their coffee, I had milk and sweet and low. They said they’d have milk and sugar if I had it, but no sweet and low because they tried to stay away from artificial sweetener. It really made me think, you know, how different their culture was from ours.
Anyway, we chatted for a bit about who knows what. We talked about the election some and about movies. We talked about how it was a shame that nice Macauley Culkin boy was getting divorced. “He married too young,” one of them said, “I said it right from the beginning, he married too young.” I agreed. One of them complimented my sugarpot cozy, which I had made last Christmas. “Just something to keep me busy!” I said, “I’ll give you the pattern if you like; it’s real easy.” He, or rather it (it was hard to determine gender through their huge mass of tentacles and wild hair) declined politely, saying it had too many other projects going right now it couldn’t add needlepoint to the pile! I said, “I know the feeling!” And we all had a good laugh.
Another cup of coffee for everybody. A few more minutes of idle chatter. I asked, offhand, “Why did you guys decide to pop in?” I explained I appreciated the company, and the question was really more out of curiosity than anything. They said they understood. Then the largest one, who seemed to be wearing more regalia than the others (I deduced he was the “captain” of the ship) stood and with a booming voice said:
“WE HAVE TRAVELED OVER 50 BILLION LIGHT YEARS TO COME TO YOUR TINY PLANET. OUR HOME IS SCREPFZAN, THE FOURTH PLANET IN THE KLINTOORTYR SYSTEM, IN THE 23RD QUADRANT OF THE FHID GALAXY. WE HAVE LEFT OUR HOME, OUR LAND OF SEVEN SUNS AND METHANE SEAS, WE HAVE CROSSED THE SEVEN QUAZARS OF BJNENA, WE HAVE CROSSED THE STARFIELD REGION IN THE NOSE OF THE HORSEHEAD NEBULA, WE HAVE TRAVELED FAR AND HAVE SUFFERED MUCH TO REACH THIS ROCKY SHORE, AND WE HAVE A MESSAGE TO DELIVER TO THE PEOPLE OF EARTH:
PEOPLE OF EARTH…. could you keep it down a little? We don’t mean to be rude, but sometimes you guys leave your stereos on a little, well, a little loud, and everyone on our planet works pretty early, so we try to get to bed around 10… I know, I know it’s not your problem, it’s this damn space-time continuum, thin as paper, I mean, this whole Universe is still on its original foundation, which… I mean, it’s sturdy, but really, we could use some renovations…”
“Have you talked to the super?”
“You mean He Who Created All and Will Destroy All?”
“Right.”
“Well, we’ve left about three hundred messages, and it’s just a lost cause…. anyway. But if you could, you know, just out of courtesy, maybe turn it down a notch, if it’s not too much to ask.”
“No, no, sure, you know, we wouldn’t know about these things unless you said something, I’ll definitely, uh, I’ll try to get the word out… I mean, I’ll tell everyone on this block. I guess, that’s a start, you know?”
“Are there many more people on earth?”
“Besides this block?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh… you know, well, let’s see… there’s my dad, my brother… cousin Bill…. oh I guess there’s about 4 or 5 billion more. You know, roughly.”
“Ooo, really? Hmm… well, you know what, it’s not really a big deal, if you could just, you know, at least watch that yours isn’t too loud, I’m sure that’ll be fine. Thanks for your trouble, we really have to run, we wanna hit the outlets before we SET BACK OUT TO CROSS AGAIN THE MIGHTY EXPANSE OF SPACE.”
I tried to convince them to stay, but they wouldn’t have any of it. They thanked me profusely again and offered to clean the coffee cups before they left. “Hush!” I said. We said goodbye. I got a darling thank you note about a year later from them. Even had a little recipe for Pineapple Upside Down cake. I’ve never used it though. I can’t ever seem to find Klintoortyrn Skinltal Tigs at the market.