#11 Aliens - Olivia

Zombies I can handle.

Evil robots don't scare me in the slightest.  Swamp monsters are nothing.  If I must die by vampire's bite, I'm at least going to be seduced first (right?).

I absolutely love watching ghost shows.  It annoys my roommate, SarahJo, who finds them a) hokey, b) a waste of time, and c) often times terrifying.  The Travel Channel has Ghost Adventures and Most Haunted Places and the Sci-fi Channel has Ghost Hunters.  I think this comes from growing up in very haunted Athens, Ohio.

But aliens freak me out.  Straight up.

I realize admitting this on the internet is probably stupid.  I don't have brothers, but I've heard of such creatures who feed on information like this.  I beg of you to have mercy.

This is a slightly overwhelming topic.

Aliens make me nervous because they linger on the fringe of my imagination.

Ghosts fall into one category: dead folk.  I know what the look like and are capable of.  Even though we've got our differences, I mean, we can relate a little.

Aliens, however, could be anything.

From Close Encounters to District 9, pop culture refuses to let us forget that despite our strides in technology and knowledge, there are things we do not understand.

And if aliens are out there - which I do believe they are - even if they're nice, they're still going to make us nervous.  It's just the natural reaction.   Even if E.T. was a pretty nice, homesick little Reese's pieces eating dude from somewhere else, his silhouette would make your stomach skip a step.

Besides, odds are, they're not nice.

And even Stephen Hawking says we should keep out heads low.

“To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational,” he said. “The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like.”


His words.  Not even mine.  


To help us sleep at night, they arrange movies with endings like War of the Worlds, Independence Day, Signs, and even Men in Black.


I will never ever see the movie The Fourth Kind because aliens have already played a terrible role in my dreams since childhood.
  

Now, I am aware that I sound more than slightly paranoid.  But I wouldn't say I'm paranoid, just aware. 

But I will say this.


If they do visit and are willing to be cordial,  I would like their opinion on Roswell, New Mexico. 


Just for kicks.  




Don Replies:


I'm sorry to say that I've got to make this short and sweet because I've got those "End of the Grading Period Gotta Get the Grading Done Blues," but that's the way it is.


Anywho, I've known Olivia her whole life and I had no idea she had any sort of alien phobia. (I've always suspected her sister's phobia, however).


I know I've said it before, but seriously, if the aliens land and it turns out they hunger for human flesh, I hope they eat me first.  I'd like to have a statue bit of me with a huge bite chuck missing from my side because I saved human after the aliens realized we were too nasty to eat.


For what it's worth, however, I always thought E.T was a bit creepy, and I don't know if it was entirely appropriate the amount of time he spent around children.  It makes me wonder if the creepy side of E.T. isn't partly responsible for Drew Barrymore ending up in rehab at such an early age.


I suspect if there's intelligent life in the universe that has the capacity to visit us here, that they wouldn't bother with us.  We're probably like some Arkansas trailer park to them so they're not likely to come here unless they're really hard up for a good time.  Okay, gotta go.  Check you next week.