To The Microwave And Beyond!
Ok, I would really like someone to tell me just what the hell happened in my kitchen the other day!
I mean, I'm no rocket scientist but that was just plain freaking impossible! It should have been! But there it was.
I have no explanation whatsoever.
Anyway, I'll start at the beginning. It wasn't much of a special day, nothing out of the ordinary. I got up, dressed, took the dogs out, brought them back in and gave them their morning biscuit, got my coffee, read the paper and nothing was eventful. Just a plain dull ordinary day. I was planning on just what I was going to get done, perhaps weed the yard some more (blasted thistles), call the groomer to get one of the dogs clipped, vacuum the carpets, stuff like that. Then I thought I should get some breakfast before I started on those dreary chores. (Maybe I'll just leave the bed unmade today. Who would know?)
Oatmeal sounded good so I got a cup of water and stuck it in the microwave to heat up. As soon as I hit the button to start, the whole thing began to crackle, spark and fizz like it was nobody's business!
'Oh just great', I thought. 'Now I'm going to have to go shopping for a new microwave!' This was only two years old, for crying out loud!
Why can't they make appliances last for more than a few years?
I stood back, not wanting to touch anything as long as there were fizzy sparking sounds, and waited it out. When it comes to electricity I am one of the world's biggest chickens and I am not ashamed to admit it!
Now here is where it starts getting really weird! I began hearing voices!
Loud argumentive voices, almost bickering. Hmm, when one starts hearing voices, don't they command you to do something? These voices sounded like they couldn't agree on something. If the microwave had dials I probably would have tried to turn them to see if I could get better reception.
As it was, I didn't have to. Believe it or not, the front panel of the oven brightened, filled with those wavy little lines TVs used to get when they had those old aerial antennas. Interesting, perhaps I'm about to get an old episode of Flipper or something. Those old wavelengths coming back to Earth!
No, it wasn't Flipper, all I saw were two…beings…with their backs to me. And yes, they were bickering.
They reminded me of robots as they had mechanical-looking arms and backs, but their heads looked to be of some organic creatures. Green hairless heads with black antennae swept back, and they seemed to be wearing some sort of metallic colored armor, one red, the other purple. They continued arguing with their backs to me, making me feel like some sort of peeping tom! Could this be some sort of spinoff of Doctor Who? If so they were some lousy Daleks!
"Huh, whatever show this is, I don't give it a week." I snorted.
They heard me. Yes, you heard me right! They –heard- me! They both turned around and I guess since they appeared on my microwave screen I must appear on…whatever was there in front of them. I couldn't see anything that looked like noses and their eyes were all one color, matching their armor/plates/clothes stuff. The before mentioned eyes got all wide and they jumped back. Or rather, floated back. They levitated or something!
"Hey! What's that?" the purple one yelled in a rather high voice. "Yuck! It's ugly!"
Now, I know I don't look my best when I first get up in the morning but c'mon! Like that thing looked any better!
"Speak for yourself, what are you made up of? Recycled trash cans?" I growled.
The red one drew itself up in a haughty manner. "Don't speak to the Almighty Tallest that way!" it demanded.
"He started it!" I pointed out. "And anyway, what the hell are you doing on my microwave!"
"Huh? Well, for your information, strange ugly creature thing, we're not on YOUR microwave! YOU are on OURS!"
"Oh really? Now how did that happen?"
The purple one opened his mouth as if he was about to answer, thought about it, closed it and turned to the red being. "Say, how –did- that happen anyway? What were we doing?"
"Umm…we were trying to rewire the oven to get rid of these loose ones, as they looked all untidy sticking out like this."
"Oh yeah, that's right! I still say the yellow wire would go better with the blue one."
"But that would make green, which –this- wire already is! Gimmee that!"
The purple one floated back, holding up one wire out of the red one's reach. "No, it goes on the blue one."
"It's the green one, I tell you!"
The red surged forward, trying to snatch it out of the other's grasp, making the purple go backwards to avoid him. They flew up until the yellow wire was stretched as far as it could go and stopped, causing the purple one to jerk to a stop and the red to crash into him. They both swore at each other. Or at least I thought they did, the words they used weren't English but hey, swear words are swear words!
I had to laugh, maybe this wouldn't be a bad show after all!
"What are you smirking at, you lowlife creature!" the red robot un-Dalek thing snapped at me.
"Don't you have any technical manuals to tell you just what wire goes where?" I asked reasonably.
"Tech manuals are for the short Irkens to use," Red sniffed. "We Tallest don't need to bother ourselves with such…" Here he waved a hand, or what passed for a hand. To me, two thin wires sticking out of what looked a lobster buoy is a bit of a stretch to be called a hand. It looked more like what an anemic Popeye would have after a nasty incident with the jagged edge of a spinach can. "….Menial drivel!"
"It'll save some time." I pointed out. "And you'll be sure to get it right. So how did you short-circuit my microwave?"
The purple one floated forward again. "I told you, WE didn't. YOU must have done something on YOUR end!"
"Me? All I did was try to heat up some water for my oatmeal!"
"Oatmeal," the red one said almost thoughtfully. "What is this 'oatmeal'? Is it a snack?"
"More like my breakfast. Which doesn't look like it's happening soon."
"Donuts are better anyway." mumbled the purple being.
The red one floated up so close to the screen….microwave door…whatever…that his whole face filled it. "Tell me, what –are- you anyway? What sort of creature?"
"I'm a human," I answered. "Just a plain old human. On Earth."
"Earth? Isn't that where we sent Zim?" the purple one put in.
"Zim? Who the heck is Zim?" Natural question, actually.
The red one immediately looked a bit sneaky, like he really didn't want to answer that. "Well, let's just say he's someone we sent over to your general vicinity, planet-wise."
I wasn't sure I liked the sound of that. "You mean he's on my planet? Doing what? Spying?"
Both beings looked up and around evasively.
"Great. You sent a spy here on my planet."
"I wouldn't exactly call him a spy," The oily tone from the red guy was beginning to bug me.
"Then what the hell –is- he doing? Selling magazine subscriptions? Don't you space freaks get any ideas about taking over my world! We humans kind of take a dim view on stuff like that!"
"We're not freaks! You are!" The purple one seemed to have a mentality straight out of kindergarten, which made me feel a bit better about the invasion idea.
"Ok then, what –are- you?" I stepped back and folded my arms. "I told you what I am. Your turn!"
"We are the mighty Irken race!" the red one responded. "And we, Purple and I, are the Almighty Tallest! We lead the Massive!"
"The Massive?" I asked. They both gave pleased nods. "Um…the Massive…what?"
They both were taken a bit aback by the question, then the red one gave an attempt. "The Massive….uh…Invasion! Invasion Fleet! Of course!"
Purple nodded. "Yeah! What he said!"
"Irkens, so you're Irkens?"
More nods.
"From the planet…Irk?"
Nods again.
"Where is this Irk?"
"Ha! Like we'd tell you!" Purple snorted.
"Wouldn't do me any good knowing it anyway." I shrugged. "Most likely out of my own solar system. Forget I asked."
"What, you don't wanna know?" The two Irkens looked at each other.
"No, not really."
They seemed perplexed then Red whispered to the other "It's a change from the nosy big-headed kid anyway."
"Big headed kid?" Now it was my turn to be perplexed.
"Yes, there's this kid …" Red began explaining.
"With a big head!" Purple broke in.
"That occasionally gets into Zim's base and he calls us to command us to give our planet's coordinates. He's…not there, is he?"
"No kid here, big headed or otherwise," I shrugged.
"Ah, then you are an adult of your species?"
"As far as I know. Of course I've been known to do somewhat childish things now and then. For fun."
"How…tall are you?"
"Huh?"
"Simple question. How tall are you?"
"What does my height have to do with anything?"
"Just answer the question!" Purple blurted. "How tall? Huh? Huh? Are you tall? Or short? Huh?"
"Compared to what?"
They both snorted in disgust.
"Ok, ok. I'm five feet four inches. Happy?"
"Hmmm, that's not bad. Are all humans as tall as you?"
"Actually, I'm short."
The eyes on both the beings got larger again. "But you said you were five feet!" Red pointed out. "Plus the extra four inches!"
"Yes, and that is a bit on the short side here. My daughter is three inches taller than me, and my brother and sister are both taller."
The Irkens seem to be considering this. I decided to push the advantage. "So tell me, how tall are you two?"
"Can't you tell? We're the Tallest!" The purple guy seemed a bit snooty about this.
"The –Almighty- Tallest!" Ok, so the red guy was snooty too.
"Ok ok ok ,so you're the Tallest. Big whoopidy doo. So, what do you…Irkens..do anyway?"
"We….ah…..expand our universe," the red one said carefully. He was hiding something, that was clear. But it didn't stay hidden for long.
"That means we take over planets." The purple guy's remark was muffled as he was munching on something that looked like popcorn. The red guy gave him a hard nudge which made him spill some out. "What? That's what we do!"
"Why do you do that?"
Red shrugged. "It's just what we do. The mighty Irken Empire must grow!"
"But what about the other life on those planets?"
"What about them?"
"You just barge in, take over and just shove them aside?"
"Well, no. We do employ them."
"Kinda, anyway." Again Purple earned a sharp nudge from Red. "What?"
"You enslave them." I was beginning to really dislike these two.
"Well, we're not killing them outright. We're allowing them to stay on their own home world." Red pointed out. "We could simply annihilate them."
"Didn't we do that on that rat planet thing? Invader Skooge's assignment?"
"Yeah but they were rats, remember? Who the heck likes giant rats?"
"More giant rats?" They both gave me disgruntled looks so I guess their sense of humor wasn't all that far advanced. "So you took over the rats' planet and now you're going to take over Earth!"
"Well, actually, no. Not really."
"You're not? But you said…"
"We –said- we had sent over Zim to your planet," The red being explained. "It's not an invasion move, he just thinks it is. All we really wanted to do was to get rid of him!"
"So you just dumped him off on us and letting him run all over invading things? Great, using my planet as a dumping ground for degenerents."
"He –thinks- he's invading," the red said again. The purple one started snickering. "But really, there's no danger. He's just so incompetent. He has no idea what he's doing half the time so there's no worry."
"If he's no danger then why send him here?"
They again exchanged a look. "We just wanted to get rid of him. He's a bit of a pest. Look, we didn't give him any invasion weapons and stuff, he only has the rudimentals of survival. No megabombers, or robot destroyers or anything like that. We weren't about to waste such expensive stuff like that on him! We don't want to come near your planet, or even your solar system!"
"Why not?" I had to ask that. The way he said that made it seem like they were belittling my home turf!
"Well, let's face it. Earth isn't exactly in a desirable location. It's far out on the edges of the galaxy, it's rather small, the other planets in your solar system are useless.."
"And ugly!" Purple put in.
"So if we –were- to invade and conquer your planet, it wouldn't be worth all the time and effort! All we could do is sell it off to some gravel company to use to patch holes in some other planet. We couldn't even use it for parts!"
"Yeah, it's too wet! It's got all that icky…wet…stuff all over it!" Purple seemed to try to get into the conversation.
"You mean water?"
"Yeah. That stuff. Ew. It's all over the place! If your species is so advanced and smart why don't you just go off and invent mops or something?"
"We…kinda need it. And enjoy playing in it."
From the expressions I got then I gathered water sports wasn't on their list of Olympic games. "Y'know, we drink it, swim in it, bathe in it, sail, surf, shoot rapids, fish and when it's frozen we can skate or ski on it."
Their expressions didn't seem to improve with the list.
"You don't do any of that, I take it."
They both shook their heads.
"What do you do when you get thirsty?"
That question seemed to make Purple indignant. "We have sodas, of course! Duh!"
"Doesn't that have water in it?" I pointed out.
"No, it's made up of mostly glooknite. Don't tell me you don't have glooknite on your planet!"
"I don't think so, as I never heard of it."
"Ha haaa!" Purple laughed and nudged Red. "It never heard of glooknite!"
"And I'm not an 'it', I'm a 'she', for your information!"
At that point my Chihuahua Smudge came trotting into the kitchen, probably wondering what his mom was doing, holding a conversation with the microwave. He sat in the doorway and uttered one of his sounds that reminded me of a Yamaha motorbike trying to turn over. Y'know, a sort of half whine half yowl nasal 'yyyaaarrrrrrrgggh!"
"What is that?" Red asked. "You have a weapon overloading?"
"It's just my Chihuahua puppy, Smudge. Hey baby." I reached down and picked him up, then moved one of his paws to make him wave at the weird beings. 'Say hi to the space guys, Smudge!"
They both floated back a bit, as if they were afraid he was going to jump through and attack. Smudge did lean forward himself but after a quick sniff he realized there wasn't any food in the microwave at the time so he quickly lost interest. He then yawned as if to show his complete lack of interests in space guys.
"So…what is that good for?" Red said curiously.
"He's just a pet, to keep me company."
"Don't you have other humans to keep you company?"
"Yes but…well…sometimes it's easier to deal with pets than with people."
"So, what you're saying is you don't get along with your own kind?"
"I didn't say that! I have plenty of friends! They just have homes of their own and I happen to have a puppy to live with me! My daughter is grown and out of the house so the place seems too quiet and empty. Pets help by just being there. Don't you guys have pets?"
"Ah…no. We do have robots though. They keep us company."
"Bet they aren't as cute and cuddly as this." I held Smudge close and scratched his ears, making him close his eyes and relax.
"No, I don't think I'd want to do that with a robot." Red admitted. "So you humans keep these small animals as …what did you call them again? 'Pets'?"
"Well, not all people keep Chihuahuas, some prefer cats, or fish, or reptiles, or birds. And not all dogs are this small, this is as small as they come. There are dogs that outweigh me!"
"Isn't having an animal around bigger than you are dangerous?"
"Not really, dogs are domesticated and trained. They need to be around people."
By now small fizzy lines began to appear on the screen. It seemed we were about to lose whatever connection that had caused this strange phenomenon. A shame, as I was just beginning to enjoy my close encounter with these two intergalactic weirdoes. "Uh, I think you're going to go off-line here in a second or two. So I guess I'll have to say it's been nice meeting you two!"
"Ah…yes, human. It's been rather interesting! I think perhaps we…."
Whatever Red was about to say got cut off. Once more I was looking at a plain black microwave screen and still without any breakfast! "Now that was just weird!" I told Smudge as I put him down and started the oven to heat up the water. "I wish I could have recorded that somehow, as nobody's going to believe me!"