Dear Readers:
Little bit of backstory: I was abducted by aliens last week — according to the twenty-six hours of conditioning on their space ship, I am supposed to say “I was invited on an opportunity to explore the Universe.” The way I see it, if the teachers of Moshannon Valley couldn’t get me to pay attention to their rules, the extraterrestrials didn’t have a chance in Ferboflaarb (alien hell).
The actual abduction itself wasn’t that bad. One tractor beam, a steam bath, and a procedure that found all that gum my Mom told me not to swallow, and I was sitting in a room full of books and having food brought to me three times a day! I didn’t have to stumble into my kitchen three or four times, open the fridge several times, and then resolve to just call the pizza guy — the pizza guy came to me and I didn’t have to tip him! The Space Explorers of Planet Vingerglorx 9 (they gave me permission to call them “the Spaceman” after I butchered it enough times) couldn’t comprehend the rural appetite that I had been raised with and so the meals changed a little bit. I asked Jimferglorp (Jim, for short. He hates it) what the new sustenance was — he jokingly replied “It’s a salad, you pack animal!” Jim has been my best friend since I arrived on the ship.
In the mornings, the Spacemen like to ask me questions about my culture and the human race. You know me, I can’t take anything serious, so they actually believe that Earth is ruled over by Empress Kim Kardashian and that Kanye West is her most trusted astronomer. I didn’t realize how good I was at coming up with bullshit on the fly until I told the Spacemen to listen to Kanye West’s theory of “Inter Dimensional Insemination” with his collaborator Dr. Katy Perry, PHd. That’s right, the Spacemen think we listen to pop music and then let our genetic material fly out into space. Jim joked “I guess that’s why they call it the Milky Way.” I high-fived that four fingered citizen of Vingerglorx like no one has ever high-fived before.
We usually have working lunches — we’ll chow down on this pink paste that tastes like a strawberry milk shake, but wasn’t completely mixed the entire way and you still get clumps of powder. It’s one of the few minor inconveniences. During these working lunches, we have to learn about Vingerglorxian etiquette. They have some pretty strange customs — for example: there is no distinction between Male and Female titles of honor. President is just President, Emporer is just Emporer, and CEO is just CEO. Here is an interesting fact that I found unique: there are no Wal-Marts on Vingerglorx, because they couldn’t understand the concept of paying one Spaceperson less money just because they see themselves as female. I thought that shot was a little blatant, but it’s their spaceship, I’m just clogging the toilets on it.
Another fun history lesson I got from the Spacemen: they were planning on invading and destroying Planet Earth back in the 1970s, but abandoned the idea after they saw that we’d rather strip our planet bare of timber instead of using hemp, just because of a political opinion that it should be illegal. Since then, they’ve referred to Earth on the planetary resource trade as “Hirludadorge,” or “the job that does itself.” So, the good news is that there won’t be any Will Smith style invasions — but there will be spaceships hovering in orbit like vultures after we deplete the planet of everything that makes it able to host life. …so there’s that.
In closing, I’m expecting to be home sometime next week. I’m not sure how much of my trip I’ll remember. Jim says that I’ve sure made an impact on him — the other Spacemen say that he contracted something called “A fungus in the nose that can only be obtained by smelling a barn.” Everyone, wish Jim a speedy recovery!
I’ll see you on your next trip across the Millerverse!
A.P. Miller 