167. Explanations

“Look here Big Dope, you’ve got to help,” C.W. was saying. “I’ve got some explaining to do.” He reached and grabbed a strand of grass and began to chew on it. We were walking around our farm checking the fences and getting some exercise on the first nice day of early fall. He had assumed the form a hick farmer, complete with a depression-era straw hat and overalls.

I was hoping nobody was watching us. “What do you have to explain now?” I asked.

“A bunch of stuff,” he said, pointing the stalk of grass at me. “The Elder Council on Falloonia is considering recalling me.”

“Recalling you? What have you done?”

“It ain’t me,” he said. He reached down and pick up a dried segment of cow manure and held it up for inspection. He eyed it carefully and seemed about to take a bite of it.

“Put that down,” I said.

He sailed it across the pasture like a flying saucer. “It’s your species,” he said. “Your behavior has them stupefied as with alcoholic drink.”

“Befuddled?”

“That’s what I said. It confuses me when you repeat my words.”

I sighed. “So what have we done now?”

“Where do I start?” he said. He stripped a small branch from a gum tree and began to swish it through the air. “What about this tendency some of you have to vote for individuals to run the government who hate the government?”

“Not all of us do.”

“Enough to arouse galactic curiosity.”

“I see. Anything else?”

“There is this thing called ‘The Prosperity Gospel’ that has some elders scratching all three of their heads.”

“Three heads? You have three heads in your natural form?”

He stopped and turned. “Forget I said that. I was just speaking  in the nature of or involving a figure of speech, especially a metaphor.”

“You may have been speaking figuratively but you distinctly said that Falloonians have three heads.” I giggled.

“I’ll be in trouble if this gets out,” he said.

I couldn’t stop laughing. “What do you call yours? Winkin, Blinkin, and Nod?”

“This isn’t funny,” he said.

More laughter. “Moe, Larry, and Curly?”

“Stop it,” he said, swinging his gum tree branch at me.”

“I know,” I said. “The Fadduh, the Son, and the Gallactic Ghost.”  I was practically rolling. I stopped laughing when he spun around and stalked away. I ran after him. “I sorry,” I said. “Go ahead and tell me about your troubles with our religious doctrine.” He slowed down and let me join him.

There are three things about your species that worry me:
- Your inability to think in linear fashion,
-Your complete lack of logic in making decisions, and
- Your disregard for the rational method. - C.W/

“We wonder,” he said. “How your thoughts get around the inconsistencies of preaching wealth from the teachings of a prophet who despised riches.”

At this moment, the Dark One himself must have invaded me. “Which one wonders,” I said, “Huey, Dewey, or Louie?” I doubled over laughing.

This time he did stalk away. As he did, he yelled back at me. “Go ahead and laugh. Then you can explain why a man wearing a twenty-five thousand dollar watch preaches the gospel of a man who never even had a home to live in.”

“Wait, Athos,” I yelled after him. “Porthos and Aramis are coming.”

Some travels with the Alien are more fun than others.