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A Stormy Night and Dark It Was
It was a dark and stormy night when I heard a knock on the door.
On my porch stood an alien. About four-feet tall, he was one of those spindly green aliens, with a big cranium (to hold that big brain, you know), bulbous black eyes, and long rubbery arms hanging down to his knees. The guy looked like a figure out of central casting. (“Send me over a stock alien, ASAP.“)
“We come in peace,” he said proudly. “Na nu na nu.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Na nu na nu? Where are you from, Orc?“
“No, I’m from Metamorphia and my name is Mxyzptik.”
“Well, Mr. Mxyzptik, what is it that you want?”
”No, no, dear earthling, this is not about what we want. It’s about what you need. We can help you live long and prosper. Right now you’re being held back because you’re, well — how can I put this? — stupid. That’s not a metaphor. Ir refers specifically to your low IQs. Back on our planet, we have a saying about your intelligence: Earthlings, the saying goes, are not the sharpest krabbles in the snorztle.
“So I, representing the United Planets of the Galactic Assembly, have come to help you primitive people move forward to the utopia you deserve. We have a technology that will raise your IQs. All we ask in return is that you cede a few of your useless rights to us and allow us to mine your dead bodies for rare minerals. We can talk about those later.“
That condescending little twerp. Stupid is as stupid does. Besides, I’ve never trusted anyone, pink or green, who wanted me to cede a few of my god-given rights. Or anyone who uses triple exclamation points. There was also something else about this guy that bothered me. He didn’t seem comfortable in his own skin. In fact, his skin seemed to move independently of his skeletal structure..
So I grabbed the patronizing little twit and wrestled him to the ground. Ugh. It felt like I was wrestling with a giant piece of sausage still in its casing, limp and greasy. Once I got him on the ground, I sat on his chest and pinned his spindly arms. I then gave him a ferocious Dutch rub on his big shiny forehead. He let out a squeal that would wake the dead.
“There’ll be a lot more of the torture de Dutch,” I said, “if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”
Suddenly beneath me, I started to feel a writhing mass, and liquid of some sort was soaking though my trousers. I looked down to see Mr. Mxyzptik metamorphosing into a tentacled monster. The aliens were shapeshifters!
That only made me increase the intensity of the Dutch rub I was giving him. I was beginning to feel my own knuckle burning from the friction when Mxyzptik the tentacled monster broke.
”I give up! No more Dutch rub! I’ll tell all. We change to our real form, the writhing monster, when we hear a 20 kHz tone (just below a dog whistle) for ten seconds. What you thought was an involuntary screech of pain from me was actually a trigger that morphs me.”
It wasn’t a pretty thing to watch that little mouth, situated in the middle of a mass of tentacles, dribble green liquid as he explained all of this.
“We’ve been spying on you for years from our distant orbiting spaceships, mostly hidden behind Mars. To get a sense of your capabilities before we invade, we’ve been uploading your old television shows, especially science fiction (which we love). We’ve learned your languages, analyzed your weaknesses, and scoped out your military defenses by uploading Mars Attacks, War of the Worlds, and other invasion movies.
“In fact, we’ve already begun our invasion. We’ve chosen Portland, Oregon, as our first target, largely because we had observed that mayor’s weak-kneed capitulation to other invading armies: the goths and vandals of Anti-fa and BLM.
“We also knew that in Portland we could go about our business with impunity if we pretended to be “woke” (is that the word?). We also knew that they would love our slogan: Green Lives Matter.
“In 30 minutes, we’ll begin the destruction phase of the invasion by razing a few of Portland’s precious food trucks with our laser guns. That will stun Portland’s metrosexual class and leave them cowering in their coffee shops. According to our analysis, the city should then fold like a cheap suit, with virtually no resistance.
”So you’re too late now, human! The invasion has begun!! You’re doomed!! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!”
“Not quite, shorty.” I pulled my iPhone out of my pocket and phoned the FBI, who then poured out of the Federal Building and started to round up the aliens. It wasn’t hard to find them. For one thing, they’re 4’ high and green as pickles.
This was going badly for the Metamorphians. So as a last ditch effort to save the invasion, one of the invaders below on Earth sent a message to his mother ship to send down a focused sound beam of 20 kHz to Portland. Perhaps if all of the Metamorphians morphed into monsters at the same time, Portland would give up in the face of multiple tentacles monsters.
At the moment of the shapeshifting signal, there were aliens standing in a long line in front of Voodoo Doughnut, aliens grokking on the nude statue on 5th Avenue, aliens wandering around Powell’s City of Books. Suddenly, all over Portland, the aliens were revealed for what they were: writhing, slimy, tentacled monsters. Unfortunately for the Metamorphians, the writhing, tentacled monsters don’t move very well on concrete sidewalks. They kind of lurch and inch along. So no one was particularly startled. The Metamorphians didn’t do their research on this matter.
It was then an easy matter for the FBI to scoop up these writhing, slimy, octopus-looking creatures as they squirmed about the pavement, barely ambulatory. Worst invasion army ever!!
I was still sitting on Mr. Mxyzptik through all this. Here’s what I said to him, “The Metamorphians aren’t the sharpest krabbles in the snorztle. Karma is a bitch, isn’t it?“
Then the FBI’s tech guys rocketed up and boarded the aliens’ sparsely staffed mothership and inspected their hard drives. They expected to find maps of U.S. cities, battle plans, and thousands of hours of American television. Imagine their surprise when the first thing they came across was a book that suggested the aliens actually did come to aid humanity. It was titled To Serve Man.
“We’ve made a terrible mistake,” the tech guys cried. The aliens were on a goodwill mission.”
Then they opened the book. It was a cookbook.
Here’s the opening sentence from that book:
Young healthy humans are, at a year old, a most delicious, nourishing and
wholesome food, whether stewed, baked, or broiled, and I make no doubt
that they will equally serve in a fricassee or ragout.
___________________________________________
Pop Quiz for Nerds. You may have noticed that my post is full of arcane allusions, most having to do with science fiction. I’m much older than you, so I really don’t expect you to do very well at this quiz. But see if you can identify any of the following. If you identify Mxyzptik without the help of Google, you’re probably as old as I am. But who knows? There are a lot of readers on Ricochet, and who knows what they read. Answers follow.
1. Who seems to have written the title?
2. What does “krabbles in the snorztle”mean? (8th paragraph)
3. Origin of “Live long and prosper“
4. Origin of “Nanu nanu“
5. Origin of “Space, the final frontier”
6. A few aliens were found grokking a nude statue. Where does the word “grokking” come from?
7 Have you ever met the cookbook surprise before? Where?
8. Origin of “Mxyzptik“
9. Where does the last paragraph come from?
10. Origin of “Stupid is as stupid does.”Extra Credit. OK, one final question: See the photo above of the Mars Attacks poster. It’s actually not the poster that accompanied the movie. Instead, it’s a parody. Only total nerds will be able to answer this one: What artist is being parodied?
And here are the correct answers:
1. Yoda, of course
2. Knives in the drawer.
3. Spock from Star Trek
4. Mork’s catchphrase greeting from the t.v. show, Mork and Mindy
5. This was part of Capt. Kirk’s weekly introduction to Star Trek
6. Grokking comes from Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land
7 The cookbook surprise originated in a Damon Knight short story in 1950. It also appeared as a famous, often repeated, Twilight Zone episode (1959)
8. Mxyzptik is the prankster in Superman comics. (First appearing in 1944.)
9. This passage comes from Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal (1729).
10. Forrest GumpExtra Credit: The poster is a parody of a Frank Frazetta cover for A Princess of Mars. (All you need is Frazetta’s name to get credit.)
And here’s what your scores mean (in number of correct answers).
1 — 2 : You’re slow, but that’s OK. You’re probably good at other things, like playing with your Hot Wheels collection.
3 — 4: You’re below average, but you can still have a moderately satisfying life.
5 — 6: You’re right in the middle. According to the Greeks, that was the best place to be. The good ol’ via media.
7 — 8: You know too much about science fiction. Did anyone ever want to go out on a date with you?
9 — 10: You’re in Arahant territory here. You and he could have a big time discussing the Oxford comma.
Published in General
Oh, man, this is great.
And @kirkianwanderer, do you feel hungry all of a sudden?
I dunno . . . WalMart parking lots, Target parking lots, and now this. Methinks this quarantine business has gone on about as long as Ricochetti can handle it. We’re going mad, I tell ya’! MAD!
Bonus: Frank Franzetta of course.
Nine outta ten–not bad. (Though I misspelled Frank Frazetta’s name on the bonus-can I at least have partial credit, prof?)
That’s amazing, Jose. I don’t think I could have gotten.9 out of 10 and I wrote the thing. You got Mxyzxptik? Wow!. And Frazetta? And Stranger in a Strange Land? What are you?
A junior Arahant? I obviously like guys with unpronounceable names.
The FBI actually got excited about invading aliens? This is a work of fiction isn’t it?
I will fight for the comma till I die.
The pain the pain!
8 without cheating, and I am amazed that I ever found someone who was willing pair with my DNA.
#MeToo
I always assumed that Joe Btfsplk was a satire of the Superman character, but Joe showed up two years before Mxyzxptik. Maybe it was the other way around.
Hey, wait a minute! There’s no mention of Bobtheedog in this story! What gives?
Is this really Kent Forrester?
We look to be covering the genre waterfront with fiction entries this month. An excellent start to the month.
This conversation is part of our Group Writing Series under the October 2020 Group Writing Theme: “It was a dark and stormy night… .” Stop by soon, our schedule and sign-up sheet awaits.
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No, but that was the case even before I became a serious reader of science fiction.
I always thought it was Mr. Mxyzptlk, no vowels.
oh and 9/10; where does the “forks in the drawer” thing come from?
Meandur, it’s “He’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer.”
I just copied it. You could be right.
Question 1. Yoda? Is this a Yodaism and not an actual quote?
Just a Yodaism.
No more results found for “krabbles in the snorztle”.
Suggestions:
no citations, I call foul and claim my 10/10
Obviously not the sharpest krabble in the snortzle.