147. Friends

C.W. was pouting and when he does, it is not pretty sight. Falloonian tears are this pinkish color and they tend to occur more from frustration than from sadness. So I have this whining alien in the form of a sixteen year-old girl spouting what looks like rivulets of Pepto-Bismol down her face. I put my morning oatmeal aside, my appetite having vanished. Her tears were beginning to drip.

“If you get that stuff on the couch, you are going to be in real trouble,” I said.

“You just hate me.”

“That’s beside the point.”

“I’m going to live with someone else.”

“I’ll help you pack.”

“Jesus is going to get you. And I’ll be happy when he does.”

“Jesus doesn’t ‘get’ people.”

“Oh yes he does. He gets gays, liberals, and anyone who doesn’t support our troops. I saw it on the ‘Christian Love Channel.’”

What could I say? Nothing. So I returned to my laptop.

What, one might ask, brought on this fit of pique? Just this: I put a new password on my computer so she can’t use it to open access her Facebook account. The reason? That should be apparent to anyone familiar with the escapades of our resident alien and with the ability of the authorities to trace computer entries. My phone already makes these mysterious clicking sounds and I strongly suspect tapping.

“All of my colleagues around the world have a Facebook account.”

“If all your colleagues drove their spaceships into a black hole, would you follow them?”

"Our representative in Spain even has Twitter.”

“Did your representative in Spain post a picture of my wife bending over while she was planting corn and caption it: ‘The Sun riseth and the sun goeth down?”

“Mrs. Big Dope thought you did it.” She giggled. “Besides, she thought it was funny.”

I touched a bruise on my arm. “She had a funny way of laughing. And you are not getting back on Facebook.”

“How am I going to share my recipes?”

“When have you ever prepared a meal?”

“I might start.” She paused and then her face lit up. “And I need to help impeach the President.”

“What?” I was stunned. “Why?”

“Because he’s colored. That’s what Brytannie says. She learned it in church.”

“One more reason you can’t use my computer.”

“What am I going to do with all the cat pictures I took?”

“Put them in a scrapbook.”

“What’s a scrapbook?”

“It’s a collection of photos and clippings you glue onto the pages of a large folio.”

“Eeeuw!”

“And you share them with friends at your next bunking party.”

“What’s a bunking party?”

“It’s when your friends come over and spend the night with you.”

“Like Tymber, Londin, Kathee, and Kingstun?”

“Uh, not Kingstun.”

These cute creatures love their photgraphs.
But Big Dope won't let me post them. - C.W.

“Why not. He’s going to show me some things about photography.”

“I’ll just bet.” I was getting tired of this conversation. “Why don’t you just find something else to do. Say, for example, read a novel.”

The tears stopped and she looked at me with a pleasant smile for the first time all morning. “Maybe so,” she said. Then her face turned inquisitive. “What’s a novel?”