COLUMN: Interview with an alien
Last night I went to that secret ritual I always rely upon for writing inspiration. I tuned into Star Trek reruns and put on a full pot of Columbian dark roast.
Somewhere between The Federation saving the universe and my fourth cup of Columbian, I felt a presence in the room. It told me I had been chosen to do an interview with an extraterrestrial. It wasn’t the extraterrestrial itself, but rather its publicist. I could tell because it said there were ground rules: No photos, no autographs and no questions about Enron.
The publicist said the interview was granted to “Slightly Off Center” because it was not weird enough for either the Oprah Winfrey Show or The National Inquirer. How could I refuse?
(Bob will be used as a pseudonym because its real name can only be pronounced by humans who can sneeze and gargle at the same time.)
Slightly Off Center: When will you contact us publicly?
Bob: We were going to contact you sooner, until you started coming up with those ridiculous stories about us being responsible for crop circles. I mean really, we’re capable of traveling between planets at faster than the speed of light, but what we really like to do is draw pictures in wheat fields? Yah right. We obviously overestimated your rate of mental evolution.
SOC: Is there any truth to these alien abduction stories?
Bob: Despite what abductees are saying, nobody is having alien babies. We find you quite repulsive. Besides we got rid of the notion of sex and gender a millennium ago. It was just taking up too much time and energy. However, we still do enjoy watching you humans blunder around.
We do occasionally pick one of you up on a back road in Alabama from time to time. In accordance with the “catch and release” laws of our planet we always throw them back, though.
SOC: When will you visit our town?
Bob: Well, we don’t do things randomly. We kind of thought those hillside letters you are so fond of were a sign for us. So we have been following them alphabetically. Imagine our surprise when we found out they were just there to represent high schools and colleges. Oh well, at least we’ll be visiting educated towns. And by the way, from the sky if you read those letters from east to west, they spell out a very vulgar term in our language.
SOC: What do you think of Star Trek?
Bob: Hated the movies, but we like The Next Generation. Worf was the coolest.
SOC: Are your ships really shaped like saucers?
Bob: Yah, right. We travel the universe in something that looks like a Frisbee. This saucer depiction was just a promotional stunt concocted by Wham-O. Actually, our ships look a lot like stealth bombers only they are less expensive.
SOC: What do you really look like?
Bob: Well we don’t look like cone heads or E.T. or some acid spitting thing on Aliens. We look sort of like Homer Simpson only with more hair and smaller ears.
SOC: What do you think of Steven Spielberg’s movies?
Bob: I think E.T. and Close Encounters were about as realistic as The Ice Age.
SOC: Is there hope for the human race?
Bob: You’ve made tremendous advances, but now we’re withholding judgment until we see how this Middle East thing plays out.
SOC: Any final comments?
Bob: Elvis isn’t not alive; the Lock Ness Monster is sort of like one of our “goldfish” that escaped; Big Foot was just a joke that got out of hand; the Kennedys are responsible for everything else.
SOC: That’s it?
Bob: Yes, go back to watching Star Trek and be sure not to misquote us like you do in all your other columns.