A Weighty Obligation

When the aliens come, it will be my responsibility to keep them from abducting or contacting my family.

I take this on, not as a way of protecting my family, but for the greater good. There's no way humanity, or the aliens, would benefit, and if I fail to keep the parties separate, much confusion could result.

While it's only to be expected that one member of our family (me) would know just about everything about just about everything, judging from our Thanksgiving meal together, everyone in my family is pretty much an expert about anything you care to name. Not only are we all brilliant, we're all quite noisy about it.

There's no way the aliens should be led to think that all humans are like this. Meeting us would skew their research, and not in any good direction.

When we're not busy shouting over each other in an effort to make our voice heard, we're sulking because no one listens to us. Again, not typical. I've met quite a number of families over the years, and every one of them would be a better candidate for alien study.

I'm sure that we'd all rush out to see the glimmering, silvery spacecraft and its inhabitants, but I'm equally certain that I'll need to do everything in my power to prevent it. Not all members of my family would be easily distracted by shiny objects, but I'm hoping. Perhaps they'd be swayed by another of my famous recitations about growing up with black and white television.

What I'll have to do, when the aliens come hunting, is to point them to a reasonable family. The good news is, just about any I could name would be better representatives of the planet Earth than mine would be.

I just hope those aliens have room on their ship for me, too.