A Probing Account

As the young alien inserted yet another anal probe, he thought, What in the holy name of Halleroth are we doing with our lives? He then asked the other aliens around him, “Why do we always probe their anuses? I mean, seriously, what are we hoping to learn?”

“It’s just what we do,” the head alien told him. “It’s what we’ve always done.”

“He’s right, Glork,” said another. “It’s our calling. And we do find some pretty cool stuff sometimes, eh?”

All of the aliens, except for the young one, chuckled heartily at this and then traded remarks like: “Yeah, we sure do,” and “Boy, that’s no lie,” and “Remember that TV remote?” Then they all looked at each other and started chuckling again.

“So this,” the young alien wondered, “is all I have to look forward to, for as long as I live? Probing human anuses?”

“Well,” the head alien said, “don’t forget all the cows.”

Again there was laughter, and two of the other aliens began to “moo” along with it, until the young alien shouted, “Enough!”

“Hey—easy there, Glork,” the head alien said, patting him on the shoulder. “It’s just a little friendly fun we’re having here. It’s not at anyone’s expense.”

The young alien shook his head gloomily and said, “I bet this man would say different if he suddenly woke up.”

“They never wake up,” squeaked the smallest alien.

“Yeah? What about that guy from Reno?”

“Ah, that was a fluke, and you know it.”

“Fluke or not, he woke up, and he screamed his head off. That screaming has haunted my sleep-state.”

“We’re all haunted by something,” the head alien said, “but we do the job; we always do the job, because it’s what we’ve done for as long as we’ve known about humans and cows…and their anuses.”

“Yeah, I get it,” Glork said. “It’s just that sometimes I want something more from life. You know? Something that doesn’t even have an anus. Something where, when I see it, I won’t automatically be thinking, Man, I so have to probe that.”

“We’ve all felt the same at one time or another. But remember: With every new anus, there comes the hope of something cool inside.”

“That TV remote,” one of the other aliens laughingly repeated.

The head alien grinned at the young alien and said, “You’re gonna be all right, Glork.”

Soon the rest of the aliens offered their encouragement with: “Yeah, you sure are, buddy,” and “We’ll help you through the rough patches,” and “Anuses are never half empty; they’re always half full.”

After a minute or two of such comments, the head alien said, “Now, what do you say we get back to probing this man’s anus.”

“Okay,” Glork said, forcing a little smile. And, in actuality, the probing did go fairly well. For a little while there, Glork began to feel as if maybe anuses were always half full.

But then the smallest alien made a fart sound, and the other aliens all started chuckling again.