On A School Night, Too

I had a busy time last night. Here’s what I’ve been getting up to on your behalf.

You see, the aliens had landed and I was part of a task force that was going to negotiate where they were going to set up camp. They wanted to pitch down near Lunar Park because it reminded them of home and they liked the view. The residents got up to their usual tricks and as well as complaining about the noise from the big dipper, added a complaint about the noise from the big spaceship.

I was sent in as a specialised generalist to smooth over the increasingly tense negotiations. We had a stumbling block that the politicians and ambassadors from Earth couldn’t get past. They felt the aliens were really rude.

Everyone was just plain rankled because, about half an hour into every speech or presentation, if there was a moment’s silence, snoring could be heard coming from the alien’s table. We’d look over and there they’d be, heads lolling back, tongues out, bit of dribble on the cheek, snoring like large, intergalactic babies.

Hillary Clinton, after taking her unshod foot from tickling my inner-thigh under the table, (weird where you subconscious takes you, isn’t it? I’d be less alarmed at a gay dream.) leant over to me and said,

“They can’t be jet-lagged, they’ve got beds on that ship.”

“You’re right Hil,” I said. But I had an idea.

During a tea break, where we were having some tea... and a biscuit, I asked one of the aliens how long their day was on the home planet.

“Forty of your earth minutes,” they answered.

And there you had it. We were keeping them up past their bedtime about ten times a day. It also meant that they couldn’t watch one full episode of The Wire without needing a nap. A point that the aliens and I had in common.