Science

Man, your species is weird.
- Your friend C.W.

300. Fear

Sometimes C.W. ends up explaining things to me in the strangest fashion, like this morning when I found him in the shape of a young police officer reading the daily news and smoking a cigarette.

“Don’t let my wife catch you doing that,” I said.

“Doing what?”

“You know. Smoking in the house. She’s warned you before.”

“I’m not afraid of her. Are you?”

“Hell yes,” I said. “I recommend it very highly.”

“What? Fear or Mrs. Big Dope?”

“Both,” I said. “Or don’t Falloonians experience fear?”

“Anxiety,” he said. “We sometimes experience anxiety.”

“Oh really? Like when?”

“Like,” he said and stopped to think. “Like when we worry that the illogic that pervades your species might clean, polish, or manipulate by the application of pressure and friction off on us.”

“That our illogic might rub off on you?” Then I decided not to rise to the bait, as he took a long drag from his cigarette and exhaled. “You’re going to die,” I said.

“Did you know,” he said, “that the Victorians in England used the word ‘die’ as a euphemism for a sexual orgasm?”

I was pleased at his vocabulary and the fact that he was doing outside research. I nodded and asked, “And did you pick up that bit of trivia there?” I nodded toward the newspaper.

“Oh no,” he said. “I read that in one of Mrs. Big Dope’s books.”

“My wife doesn’t read books like that,” I said.

“How do you know what she reads? You’re always asleep and snoring away by the time she begins to read. You might be surprised.”

I quickly moved to change the subject. “So is there anything interesting in the news today?”

“Illogic and contradictions, unless you understand what you people call evolution.”

I waited.

“Most of the articles are stirring up fear,” he said. “Fear of the food we eat on the left, and fear of the people we meet on the right. Fear of everything else in the middle.”

I nodded. “So where is the illogical?”

“Here,” he said, motioning at the front page. “Seems that even in your largest city, the crime rate is dropping.” He motioned again. “There’s not a country in the world that wants to invade yours.” He opened the paper and nodded. “You are living well past any expectations, given the poor care you take of your bodies.” He lowered the paper. “Yours is one of the safest places on the planet.”

I sat thinking of all this. “Then why,” I said, “all the fear?”

“Evolution,” he said.

“We fear evolution?”

“Some of the least of those among you fear the concept,” he said, “but no, I mean your so-called evolutionary process creates the fear and anxiety.”

“Elucidate,” I said. He paused, and I could almost hear the whirring of his Galactic Universal Translator. “Your GUT giving you problems again?”

“My GUT is fine and I trust it,” he said. “Now, where was I? Oh, I remember.” He paused again. “You asked me to make something that is hard to understand clear or easy to comprehend.”

“Quite so,” I said, enjoying his discomfort. “Evolution and fear.”

“Imagine,” he said, “you are Australopithecus afarensis, one of your ancient cousins, roaming the savannah with your pals.”

I closed my eyes. “Okay,” I said.

“All of you are as tense as a mouse in a cat food factory,” he said, “watching for things that love to eat you, and those things are legion.”

The biggest problem with fear is; it sells so well. - C.W.

“Okay.”

“Except one of you is not tense, afraid, or nervous,” he said. “You are so laid back you could listen to a Jennifer Hudson song without flinching.”

“That’s pretty laid back,” I said

 

“My point exactly,” he said. “Now which of you do you think is going to be eaten first?”

I opened my eyes. “You mean the value of anxiety has lingered with us?”

“Stuck in your DNA like stink on …”

A voice exploded from the next room, “What the hell is that I smell?” I turned toward it. When I turned back, C.W. was gone and, by my hand, the cigarette burned in an ash tray, its smoke rising to curl in the form of a noose.

Click on some ads. It costs them money and makes me some.

Also check out www.wattensawpress.com and

www.allhatnocattle.com

And buy Big Dope's book It's really quite good.

 

Christmas 2015

From the Alien C.W. to his friends:

299. Confusion

“So why do they call them debates if they don’t debate one another?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why do they call it ‘collateral damage’ when they mean killing innocent people?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why do they call it a sport when one side has a weapon and the other doesn’t?”

“Why are you torturing me?” We were in the shop and I was using a hand plane to flatten the surface of a piece of wood too large to go through my power planer. The work was exasperating enough without the inquisitive teenager that C.W. loves to shift into when I’m really busy.

“Why,” I said, “don’t you do something useful and sweep up these shavings?”

“Will you pay me to?”

I just looked at him. “Why do they call them student athletes?” he said.

“Because they don’t call them cowboys,” I said.

“Why do they call it making love when so many women of your species don’t seem to like it at all?”

“Because they don’t call it making pies.”

“Shouldn’t they call it making babies?”

“What do they call in on Falloonia?”

“It’s a long word,” he said, “and you couldn’t pronounce it. In your language it roughly translates into ‘watching the sun set with one eye and a hopeful heart’ or something like that.”

I stopped. “It what?”

“As in,” he said, “when will this be over?”

Sometimes I can’t tell whether he is jacking me around or not. I resumed my planing.

“Here’s one,” he said, “Why do they call it getting it on when they mean getting it in?”

“Do you want my wife to hear you?”

“Sure,” he said. “Maybe she knows about loading cargo into a plane.”

“Are we going somewhere with all this?”

He thought for a moment. “Do you realize,” he said, “how confusing your language is for a visitor to your galaxy?”

“Not so,’ I said. “We have two-year-olds that pick it up without effort.”

He ignored the insult. “So you allow them to reach adulthood using ‘fat-chance’ and ‘slim-chance’ interchangeably?

At this precise moment I gouged the wood and let loose a stream of imprecations, ending with one in Vietnamese that vaguely has some relation or other to one’s mother.

“That’s another thing,” he said. “What about things like …” and he uttered a phrase involving … well I can't say what it involved, other that the act of a flying leap.

“Don’t let my wife hear you saying that.” I said.

“Where do you think I learned it?”

That did it. I laid my planer aside. “Come on,” I said. “You need leadership.”

The best thing about your language, or so
 it seems to me, is its comedic value. - C.W.

“You lead,” he said, “like someone with lead in their pockets.”

I groaned.

“I enjoyed this informal exchange of ideas by spoken words,” he said.

“This conversation,” I said, ‘has cost me a fine piece of wood. And you need to adjust your Galactic Universal translator.”

“I trust my GUT,” he said. “I’ll put it up against yours anytime.”

I groaned and walked away.

Click on some ads. It costs them money and makes me some.

Also check out www.wattensawpress.com and

www.allhatnocattle.com

And buy Big Dope's book It's really quite good.

Ask The Alien: Barking Husband

Dear Ask The Alien:

My husband has started barking when we make love. At first I thought it was kind of cute and sexy, but lately it has become more annoying and the neighbors have started to complain. I’ve tried everything. I’ve offered him treats to be quiet. I’ve even tried scratching his belly but this just makes his leg jerk and starts him to howling. Nothing works. Now he has begun, just as I get “in the swing,” so to speak, nuzzling his head under my hand to make me pet him. This makes me just want to trot off somewhere. Can you help?

Signed,
Dog Lover

 Dear Dog Lover:

First, if you think you have pet problems, check out this fellow's.
Now, since you didn’t include your husband’s pedigree in your missive, I shall assume he is mixed-breed. So, I contacted the Hispanic fellow on TV, the so-called “Dog person who speaks very softly using his breath without his vocal cords,” and he offered some help. You have allowed your husband to assume the A-dog role in your home, a rarity among American couples. You must re-establish your dominant position by granting and withholding favors, if you know what I mean. Let him know what behavior is acceptable and what is not. A firm but loving leash should solve your problem. If it doesn’t, try a muzzle.
Your friend
The Alien C.W.

Oh, and while I am at it:
I figured if Big Dope could try his hand at making banners, so could I. What do you think?
Your friend,
C.W.