As much as I adore sci-fi and fantasy fiction, some of the best story lines out there are found in the tabloids at the check-out aisle. I don’t mean the rags that expose the latest exploits of the Kardashian sisters or who’s having whose baby in Hollywood, but the crummy-looking tabloids. The black smudgy ink on cheap newsprint, the ones that smell kind of like embalming fluid. They’re usually on the bottom shelf.
Headline: I Poked Big Foot with This Stick.
Headline: Hilary Clinton Caught in Love Nest with Area 51 Alien.
Headline: Newt Gingrich’s Mars Mistress (okay, I made that one up).
They’re awesome examples of world building, if you take into account that the intended audience of these tabloids actually thinks they live in these fictionalized worlds.
But then it all came home to roost. I gave birth to an alien baby. It’s really weird, because I totally don’t remember having sex with an alien, which is really a shame because I bet alien sex is really, really hot. I mean, apparently these guys probe people just for fun, so can you just imagine what they like to do when they’re turned on?
My alien appeared the usual way (not a lot of probing involved), but then we started to notice she was kind of off. After deciding that she wasn’t just Portuguese, the possibility of being an extraterrestrial started to form. She had odd quirks and strange reactions to ordinary situations. And even though she did have a belly button (we checked that a lot), it really became obvious that she wasn’t from this world.
And even though the doctors decided that she wasn’t an alien and that she was actually autistic, we still had to wonder. Maybe all autistic kids are actually aliens and they’re completely normal and advanced on their home planets. Maybe we’re the lower life forms and they’re actually just more evolved. Maybe I just need a good alien probing.
The important thing is she’s here and she’s awesome. Sure, she holds a fork in one hand while eating handfuls of food with the other hand. And yes, she has ultrasonic hearing and her X-ray vision lets her see every snack food that has been carefully stashed in a hidden cupboard. We’re much better off than my sister…she had Big Foot’s baby. You can read about it in the tabloids next week.
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Lorca Damon is a staff writer for GoodEReader.com and the author of Autism By Hand, along with several other YA novels. She writes a humor blog at http://lorcadamon.com but it violates the Geneva Conventions to make people read it.
I love how you infuse life with humor, Lorca! You're probably right about autistic kids being the more highly evolved life forms, too. :)
ReplyDeleteMy grandmother believes that everything in print is true. We used to have arguments about it but I gave up. I mean, she's correct about pretty much everything else in the world so statistically speaking, she is probably right about this, too. I hope I never have an alien baby.
ReplyDeleteI may also have had Big Foot's baby... although it depends if we are talking size or hair!
ReplyDeleteI laughed at your Mars' mistress headline.
So funny. Your sense of humor slays me about what many people are so ubersensitive about. I adore you, woman.
ReplyDelete{{hugs}}
I work with autistic kids on a daily basis as a therapist--and I've taken up hand-flapping myself as a very powerful form of self expression!
ReplyDeleteLove your humor Lorca.
Aloha,
Toby
http://www.tobyneal.net/
I often think my husband is an alien...Superman is technically an alien. I think I could have sex with him...and have his baby. Unless they could fly. Babies are hard enough when they can't escape. Oh well.
ReplyDelete