1962. Interplanetary Cultural Exchange

(Today is the first of seven stories to celebrate Science Faction Weak).

Some of the more erudite among you may have heard of the literary genre of Science Fiction. If you haven’t – no matter. It is all made up stuff, which is why it is called Fiction. But this story here is Science FACTion. Those who regularly follow this blog know that it pulls no punches, takes no prisoners, and refuses stolidly to enter the airy-fairy world of make-believe.

This then, needless to say, is yet another true story proving once again that FACTion is stranger than FICTion.

Imagine the world-wide excitement when the Earth Government and the Government of our nearest inhabited planet, Loupchian, came to a mutual agreement; a scheme would be set up to allow for the interchange of students between the two planets. It would last about six months in each case. What a tremendous opportunity for artistic understanding! There was hardly a household on Planet Earth that didn’t want a LICK (Loupchian Interplanetary Cadet Kid).

The Loupchiens were a strange evolutionary line. They were like hairless dogs that walked around on two limbs and wore clothes. They were intelligent and showed an extraordinary facility for languages. Research had shown that it was a tiny insignificant event that had shoved the evolution of Homo sapiens in one direction and the Loupchiens into another. In fact, the Loupchian bipedal dog-look-alikes kept house pets that looked remarkably like homo sapiens. Except the homo sapiens pets were naked and dumb.

The exchange program went almost perfectly for a year. Thousands of LICKs were exchanged. Both sides became steeped in one another’s way of doing things. It was described as “a stunning bicultural enrichment”.

There were two things that rankled on Earth however. Those Earthings who returned could not be re-educated to stop bad habits they had picked up on the Loupchian Planet. The human boys would cock their legs to pee, and both sexes went around sniffing each other’s bottoms.