On an achingly-lovely late-summer day, I headed to the post office to mail a letter. As usual, silly me, I neglected to notice the time was noon, i.e. lunchtime.
The queue at the post office stretched all the way out the door and into the beige-and-gray lobby. At least fifteen people were in line ahead of me.
Achingly-lovely late-summer days always fill me with unattainable yearnings. As I stood in the post office line, I longed to go home. Not home to my apartment, but home to my PLANET…the planet I got kidnapped from by earthlings when I was a baby.
The problem is, and always has been: I don’t know what or where my planet might be.
As I surveyed the lobby, I imagined my planet’s corridors would be painted in bright tropical colors, not sombre beige and gray. Cheerful robots bearing free foot-long hot dogs and gooey blueberry pie would roam the perimeters. And people would act like I do, talking too much and saying silly things, not quietly waiting in line.
Filled with sudden hope, I scanned the crowd and listened for signs that someone else was a visitor from my planet.
At the counter, a postal worker queried a man with a pile of paper-wrapped parcels, “Do these packages contain anything dangerous or explosive?”
“Only if you consider satire dangerous and explosive,” the man said.
Underneath my purple hair extensions, my ears perked up. That sounded like something I might say. As the postal worker viewed the man with the kind of puzzled expression I’m all too familiar with, I considered breaking rank, running over to the man, and shouting, “Take me home with you!”
But I didn’t.
You see, I needed to mail my letter, and I didn’t want to lose my place in line.