Beware of Pink Russians
(or Why Rudy Shouldn't Run the Console After His Third Shot of Whiskey)

Artie blinked and looked around, taking in the metallic grey walls festooned with multicolored Christmas lights and Hawaiian flower necklaces, blinked a second time, and screamed.

"Ow! Have you not gone through puberty yet or what?"

He turned around and found himself meeting unnaturally large, slanted grey eyes. Standing about chest-height, right in front of him, was the classic grey-green, bulbous-headed alien.

"Hey man, sorry for the mixup," the alien said, "We totally didn't mean to do that." He jerked his thumb toward a console to his left where a slightly greener alien was shaking an upended shot glass over his mouth. "Rudy's math gets a little off after the third whiskey."

Artie returned his attention to the alien in front of him and watched in mute fascination as it offered its four-fingered hand. "Hello, name's Paul."

Artie screamed again. "Oh my god! What are you going to do with me?"

Paul backed up a bit. "Wait, what?"

"Are you going to like, cut me open or something?"

Paul looked horrified. "What, no!"

"Are you going to teleport my brain?"

"Oh for Christs sake."

"Are you," Artie shuddered and gulped, "Are you going to probeme?"

"Ohmygod NO!" Paul yelled. "What on Earth makes you think we'd want to do crap like that?"

Artie pointed to the corner where several long items of various shapes hung from the wall. "Right there, aren't those probes?"

Paul smacked the heel of his hand against his over large forehead. "THOSE. ARE. COOKING. SPOONS!"

"What?" Artie paused. His brain could not comprehend this turn of events.

"You're in the kitchen you dork."

Artie squeaked. His face turned so ashed even his pimples were white. "You're going to eat me!"

"For fuck's sake no! We didn't even mean to bring you up here!"

"Than why am I here?"

"Yeah Paul," the alien in the corner, Rudy, gave out a soft belch. "Why is he here?"

"Shutup Rudy! This is your fault. And anyway," Paul stepped a bit closer to Artie and lowered his voice, "What were you doing thatclose to all those cows?"

"Dude!" Artie jumped a few feet back. "Nothin, I wasn't doing nothin!" He tried to not think about Cousin Derek and his stupid cow-tipping dares. Then another thought came to him. "Oh my god." His face flushed and his eyes went wide. "What were you going to do with the cow!"

"What?"

"Yeah," Rudy piped up, "Just what are you insinuatin'? I'll have you know we had a perfectly legi-... legi-... a perf'ctly good reason for wantin' that cow."

"Shutup Rudy." Paul turned back to Artie. "What is it with humans and all the crap they think aliens do with cows. Can't a man try to make some Dead Grasshoppers and a few Pink Russians without being accused of probing someone? And anyway, how else am I going to eat cornflakes in the morning?"

Artie paused, "Why do you guys want to kill grasshoppers? What did the grasshoppers ever do to you?"

Paul's mouth hung open. "You can't be serious."

"What?"

"Right. I'm done. Whiskey's fine."

Rudy cheered.

"We can have eggs for breakfast instead." Paul walked over to the console and pressed a large yellow button.

As the spaceship began to disappear around him and be replaced with familiar green pastures Artie heard Rudy yell, "But we don't have any chickens!"