Yeah, I know all teenage boys have a weird relationship with their mothers. We still love our mommies, but hey, we’ve just discovered that there are other girls out there. And, while they might not love us quite as much as our moms and they definitely don’t pay for stuff like mom, they are sexier. At least it’s better than teenage girls and their mothers with that constant under-the-surface love/hate girl world crap. But still, the teenage years are a weird time for the mother/son relationship. And once you and your mom are abducted by aliens together, trust me, it only gets weirder.
My mother and I were out on a Saturday afternoon, at the mall, shopping for Christmas presents, enjoying the epicenter of modern small town life, and checking out the mall rats, speed-walkers, and potential rapists who make up the extended shopping mall family.
From reading tabloids, I’d just assumed that aliens only abduct people when they’re drunk in cornfields. But it turns out that aliens own the national houseware chain, The Pottery Barn. And if you accidentally take a left after the 500 thread count bed sheet section and turn into the stockroom, then it’s a teleportation portal directly to the mother ship.
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“Come on mom, it’s not even all that expensive, I swear.”
“Peter, it’s one hundred and fifty dollars. I’m not spending that on a video game.”
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“But it’s educational.”
“’Deathmonger IV: Now We Kill The Children’ is educational?”
“Sure, it teaches you about killing children.”
“Funny Peter. No, no, it’s this way.”
And those were the words that I heard as mom opened the swinging door and the two of us were pushed through what I can only describe as a lot like Star Trek beamer upper thing. As we were en route you could kind of see her words and feel them too if that makes any sense to you…because it sure didn’t to me.
The next thing I know my mother and I are stuck in the standing position, arms out, crucifixion style, in what looks like a round, almost empty, room. Besides the two of us, there was another mother/child combo, but this child was a girl, an attractive girl at that. She had long straight brown hair, a button nose and a wide, toothy smile, which would’ve been cute if her mouth hadn’t been frozen in the Botoxesque super smile position. There was also a little space heater, no pun intended, next to me in the round room. After what might’ve been two seconds or maybe two days, we all felt the invisible restraints shut off and were free to move about the room. Both mothers instinctively hugged their children tight for a second before taking stock of the situation.
“So does this mean I’m not getting the video game, mom?”
“Hey, I’m Ethel Robinson”---my mom
“Um hi, Susan Tiggs. This is Kelly.”
“Oh that’s Peter.”
It was the same get-to-know-you, nervous, mindless chatter that we’d employ in a doctor’s waiting room (a pretty good analogy if you think about it).
“So, are we…?”
“Do you think?”
“Hell yeah mom, we’ve just been abducted by aliens.”
“I knew we should’ve gone to Target.”
I suppose that we were being watched, or somehow monitored, since the aliens let us talk and hang out for what had to be a half an hour, but that’s hard to gauge since time seems different in space. Plus, in The Pottery Barn in general, time has no meaning. But, eventually, the four of us, in the blink of an eye, were back in our former positions, up against the wall and unable to move.
That’s when we first saw the alien. He wasn’t green. Damn you TV. He was sort of a khaki-grey color and looked humanoid, with arms, legs, a torso, a head, two mouths and four noses, not too scary, and not all that comic booky. Luckily, he spoke perfect terse English. Being Americans, we were fortunate that he wasn’t a French speaking alien.
“Welcome to my vessel. I am sorry to have taken you. My name is Bro. Do you have any questions?”
This is one polite alien.
My mom---“Um, Bro. What do you want with us?”
“I am only here to study you, Mrs. Robinson. I have no hostile intentions.”
Call me crazy or space homophobic, but I consider anal probing a hostile intention.
And as if it weren’t bad enough simply being anally probed, I just hit the teenage boy embarrassment trifecta. I’m going to be probed. It’s going to be in front of my mother. And it’s going to be in front of a cute girl.
I think Bro might’ve been telepathic, since after that thought, I was immediately transported from the wall to a medical table which itself just appeared in the middle of the room. And, naturally, I was lying on my stomach.
As Bro was sticking random objects into my colon, my mother offered advice:
“Don’t fidget, Peter.”
She just can’t help herself.
And when Kelly was being probed and I was trying to be encouraging/hitting on her mercilessly, my mom couldn’t hide her disapproval.
“Look at how she’s dressed, Peter.” Lowering her voice, “She’s a slut.”
Of course Kelly’s mom heard this. The acoustics are amphitheater-like here in space.
“Are you calling my daughter a slut?”
“She’s not good enough for my Peter.”
“Mom, come on…at least wait until they’re done rectally probing her?”
If I thought being interspecies molested in front of my mom was embarrassing, even that couldn’t compare with watching my mom get probed. But I guess Bro sensed my impending fear and the three of us, sans mom, were sent back down to Pottery Barn as soon as my mom hit the table. Mom appeared back on Earth just a minute later.
Now, in this, hopefully, unique, situation, what do you say to your fellow captees?
---Give me your email address, I’ll write
---Let’s go to the cops/TV News/National Enquirer
---Y’all want to check out the throw pillows
---Holy Shit, did that just really happen?
Those are pretty much the options.
We chose the third.
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This story is from Bowen Craig's book entitled A Look to the Future Through the Eyes of an Eighty Year Old Pirate available online at http://www.amazon.com/Look-Future-Through-Eighty-Pirate/dp/1450286194 .
