2301. The study of Earthlings

Earthlings are so tasteless. I don’t mean we eat them; I mean they don’t have much judgement when it comes to being classy. No taste. Four of us landed on Planet Earth several months ago and we have merged into the crowd while we observe Earthling behaviour.

The first thing I dislike very much is having to wear big plastic earrings with numbers on them. Mine are blue. Some others wear yellow. There doesn’t seem to be much variety in colour, not to mention variation in design. Of course we wear the horrible things to “merge in” but just how tasteless can one get?

Secondly, these Earthlings are extremely lazy. They have these two-legged servants – slaves I would call them – who do all the work. They feed the Earthlings, they milk the Earthlings, they move the Earthlings into different fields so that they have a change of view. The Earthlings do nothing for themselves. It is all done by their two-legged slaves.

The third most noticeable thing is that they have a pretty limited vocabulary. They seem to make the same word have different meanings according to the context and the intonation. I suppose it could best be described as “Blluhhhh”, although Astrzinia from our group reckons it sounds more like “Moooo”. Whatever.

Thankfully our time studying the Earthlings is drawing to a close and I’ll be able to take off these ridiculous earrings. I look forward to being able to have a decent conversation once again. And as for those two-legged servants – goodness gracious! They’re more of a nuisance than anything else. Astrzinia is taking a couple of the two-legged servants back home with her to put in the local zoo.

1706. The tale of two food bins

Imelda always noticed something about the two food bins placed at the exit to the supermarket. There was a bin for food for abandoned and hungry pets, and there was a bin for food for down-and-out humans. The bin for pet food was always bulging to overflowing. The bin for humans never had much; just the occasional can of soup or a packet of pasta.

Imelda had three children. Occasionally she would place something in the bin for needy pets. She usually did it when she had the children with her. She should lead by example. One should always be generous; not over the top, but generous nonetheless.

And then Imelda struck hard times. She had to go to the local soup kitchen and ask for food.

“Unfortunately we don’t have anything on the shelves,” they said.

So Imelda went to the pet rescue place and pleaded food for a fictitious cat.

(Dear All – Starting tomorrow – and for a week or so – I shall simply be posting favourite stories from this blog’s past. I’m currently bogged down with work. When a story’s numbering suddenly goes to 1707 then the original yarns will have recommenced!)

1063. To aid arachnophobia

Hello. I am a spider. I’m a little overwhelmed that some people are afraid of spiders. It’s arachnophobically ridiculous. So I thought I would help out by showing you around my home. That way you might learn that we are simple, normal, run-of-the-mill creatures, and there’s nothing to fear.

This here is my web; the entrance netting. It’s a beautiful thing, especially in the morning dew. It’s like a human being’s front flower garden. People think it is there specifically to catch flying food, but that’s not exactly the case. It’s there mainly to protect the front door of my home from invasion, like your garden gateway to stop a stranger’s unwelcome visitation. When a flying enemy gets caught in the net, I numb them and kindly invite them inside. Some get quite a buzz out of that. Let us go inside now.

Welcome to my kitchen! It’s not a kitchen like other kitchens. We spiders eat our food raw. A lot of people do that with fruit and vegetables; eat them raw. It’s healthy to eat raw. But what the kitchen is used for is to boil up different syrups to make the web sticky. Note all the shiny copper-bottom pots hanging from the ceiling! It’s quite a job cooking and cleaning because, as you know, syrup can easily burn and stick to the bottom of a pot.

This next room is the exterminating room. After impressing my guests with the kitchen, we welcome them here and humanely exterminate them. They are simply injected with a lethal poison and are dead in seconds. Sometimes I might have to bite a head or two off to speed up the process. Let us move along.

The space through this door is the abattoir. First the juices are extracted on this sucking machine, and the carcass is then hacked into edible portions. We spiders eat politely. We’re not pigs. If there’s too much food, leftovers are placed in clay pots to be stored for future use. We won’t bother to enter just now, but the clay pots are stored in the pantry through that door.

Finally, here is the dining room. We don’t sit to eat; we stand. It’s a spider tradition. We must always be on the alert for the approach of yet another flying enemy. Would you perhaps care for a piece of moth leg or a slice of grasshopper abdomen? A fly eye? A mosquito proboscis? Such variety!

I hope this tour has helped conquer any irrational fears you might have about spiders. We are ordinary; in fact, almost human. I shall hopefully catch you later.