The real Little Green Man from Mars is alive and well and living in Appalachia.

The Truth Is a Lone Assassin by Jonco Bugos


Saturday, May 9, 2009

In And Out

Being a former Martian made me sensitive, and even a little touchy, about certain things. Like space. Not outer space but the kind of space between a person and his or her environment. Contemporary Americans like to call it "personal space". I call it what older Americans used to call it. Breathing space.

Nothing in my life experience as an Earthling echoed my sentiments about having enough breathing space like the old Cole Porter tune, "Don't Fence Me In". Fences weren't only objectionable barriers for cowboys in Montana. They bothered me, too. But, still, a fence could be climbed over or slipped through or crawled under and then the other side was suddenly your side. If someone called the coppers on you or took a pot shot at you, then you just found yourself another fence to breach. But the case was certainly different with walls. Walls need doors in order to see what's on the other side. And, if the door is locked, then you either have to have the key or you stay on the other side. And when you are forced to stay on the other side, that side is always the outside. Even if it's the inside.

During my one and only lifetime on the Red Planet, walls were not an issue because we all lived outside. And that's because the weather was always perfect, night and day, year in and year out. The only walls were in Cydonia and that's because rulers build walls to keep commoners out, not to keep themselves in. But all that changed after Nibiru (commonly referred to as Planet X on Earth) found Mars in its predictable path eons ago and used its gravity to suck our fresh-water seas dry and siphon off most of our atmosphere. What Nibiru left us was dust, memories and some ancient salt.

But not seeing the other side of a fence or a wall is not the biggest problem I have with such structures on Earth. The biggest problem I have is with walls and the fact that they often contain breathing space that is far too small for my requirements. And the biggest example of that is the Earthling bathroom, clearly the smallest room in any American household, despite the fact that most of a person's waking hours at home are spent there than in any other room. So, naturally, the people in charge of making bathrooms on this backward planet made them the smallest breathing space available to anyone.

It's bad enough to be confined in an airless cubicle several times a day, but it's even worse when the only air available is from a window that was placed right beside the toilet. Apparently, Earthlings don't require much privacy. I guess no one imagined that a window could be put at eye level, for bathroom users to look out instead of for neighbors and passers-by to look in. To correct this oversight Earthlings invented window blinds that always roll up with a loud snap when you aren't looking and curtains that always blow in or out and expose parts of you that are better left unexposed. To compensate for that, Earthlings installed exhaust fans that let air out. The only air they let in is through the crack in the bottom of the bathroom door that invariably chills your feet while you sit and read the National Geographics or stand and towel off. And the fans make so much noise that you can't hear the ball game on the radio.

Being a former Martian who absorbed all his nourishment through the skin, I never needed a bathroom before. Not until I found myself wandering Earth in the afterlife. Stupid Earth bathrooms with their claustrophobic walls and their peeping-tom windows. I guess my biggest problem with walls is not so much with Earthling bathrooms as it is with Earthlings. But when in Rome you do as the Romans do or they feed you to the lions.

I hope my next time around is on Jupiter. I hear their bathrooms are as big as barns.