In our last episode, the slimeballs arrived on Earth and started destroying our way of life by showing humanity how to eliminate poverty, end war and lose weight without dieting. Pete Camphrey feels nothing but hatred for these evil, green balls of slime, but his wife Maureen isn’t so sure.
The War Begins
"I don’t know, Pete," Maureeen said. The TV screen now showed a giant slimeball spaceship hovering over the Taj Mahal. "I know they look kind of gross, but maybe we can trust them. It would be great to have a national low-cost health insurance system."
"Trust them?" Pete couldn’t believe what he was hearing. It was like he was on some kind of weird reality show and Maureen was one of his irritating roommates. "How can we trust them? They’re slimeballs!"
Sarah, their 12-year-old daughter walked into the room just then. "I think they’re kind of cute," she said, without looking up from texting on her cell phone.
"Yeah, Dad, they’re cool," added ten-year old Jason, from his place slumped on the couch. "They’re from outer space. I bet they have 3-D everything!"
"They’re not cool! They’re not cute! And they don’t have good ideas!" Pete shouted. "They’re slimeballs!"
"Oh, Dad," Sarah sighed, while her thumbs ran over the tiny keys on her phone. "Chill out."
Now a slimeball was on the TV, talking to Brian Williams. The three-foot wide ball of gunk was actually in the studio, hovering a couple if inches above the chair they had provided for it. It was a strange thing about the slimeballs - their gooey, green slime was always running down towards the ground, but they never actually dripped on anything. Pete figured they must use some sort of anti-gravity device to keep themselves intact. Still, he couldn’t understand why the anchorman didn’t vomit just from being so close to the big ball of snot.
"Thanks for having me on, Brian," the slimeball was saying. You couldn’t tell where the alien’s voice was coming from. Pete felt like it might have been coming from inside his own head. "I know this is pretty frightening for some people and I apologize for the way we look. It’s just the way evolution worked out on our planet."
The slimeball paused, almost like it was clearing its throat – if it had a throat. "Sorry, I just remembered a lot of you don’t believe in evolution." Brian Williams smiled politely.
"But that doesn’t matter" the slimeball continued. "We want you to know we mean you no harm. We are just here to show you how to make this world a better place. And to help humanity get to know us better, our ships will be visiting towns and neighborhoods all around the globe. You can find the nearest meeting location by typing slimeballs into Google maps. Or you can visit our Facebook page."
"Facebook page!" Pete sputtered. He didn’t have his own Facebook page!
"Yeah, I friended them this morning," Jason said, his eyes on his laptop. "Hey look, they’re coming to the Willowbrook Mall! Let’s go!"
"Good idea," said Maureen as she turned off the flat screen TV. "I want to hear more about their cap and trade plan for carbon emissions."
"Are you nuts?" Pete shouted. He felt like his head was going to explode. "It’s a trap. They’re going to brainwash us, or herd us into food factories or plug us into their matrix and use us as living batteries to power their interstellar warp drive!"
"Oh, Dad!" Sarah groaned. "You’ve been watching too many movies. Hey, can I go to Forever21?"
Pete thought his family hadn’t been watching enough movies if they were dumb enough to just drive right to where the slimeballs wanted them to go. But what could he do? He couldn’t argue with all of them. So that afternoon they all piled into the minivan and drove over to the mall to meet the slimeballs. Of course, by the time they got there, the parking lot was almost full and they had to park like a mile away. People of all colors, ages, shapes and sizes stood by their cars expectantly, looking up at the sky. To Pete, they looked like sheep waiting for the slaughter.
"Where do we go?’ Maureen wondered aloud.
"On their Facebook page, they said to just wait in the parking lot," Jason said, without looking up from his Nintendo DS game player.
"Wait in the parking lot!" Pete sputtered. "That’s exactly what they want us to do!"
"Yeah, duh," Jason told his Dad.
Then, at exactly 3 PM, a giant slimeball spaceship appeared in the sky over the mall, blocking out the sun. Immediately, bulges of slime appeared on the sides of the mothership and detached themselves, forming smaller slimeball shuttlecraft. The shuttles floated down toward the crowds of waiting humans. When they got about fifty feet from the ground, new bulges grew in the sides of shuttles, forming smaller balls that separated with a wet popping noise. These were the slimeballs themselves. There were hundreds of them.
All around Pete and his family, slimeballs were floating down and introducing themselves to the waiting humans. One came hovering right toward them - a big, wet, running ball of slime, floating about three feet off the ground.
"Hello, there!" the slimeball said. Or maybe it was some sort of mind transmission. You just couldn’t tell. "I’m so glad you accepted our invitation."
Maureen took a step forward. You could see she thought about trying to shake hands, but of course, the slimeball didn’t have any – just slime. Similar scenes were taking place all around them.
"I wanted to ask you about this health care plan," she said, addressing the slimeball’s featureless green orb. "Exactly how will it reduce costs?"
"That’s an excellent question," the slimeball replied.
"Hold still Mom," Sarah said, holding up her cell phone. "I want to get video of this for my blog."
"That’s enough!" Pete shouted, shattering the calm of the mall parking lot. He’d be damned if he was going to let his family be brainwashed or worse by some stinking ball of alien slime. He opened the sliding door of the minivan, reached in and grabbed Jason’s aluminum baseball bat, then marched straight at the disgusting ball of snot.
"Hmm, I can sense that you are agitated and fearful," the slimeball said. There it was again, inside his head!
"I’ll show you who’s agitated!" Pete growled. He grabbed the bat in his best batting stance and swung away, right through the slimeball’s slimy middle. With a sick sucking noise, big globs of green goo squirted everywhere, landing on the black asphalt, the minivan, and the nearby lightpost. Some of it even landed on Pete. The alien was decimated, reduced to lumps of quivering green gunk scattered over a ten-foot radius.
"Dad!" Sarah screamed. "What did you do? You killed it! You killed the slimeball!"
NEXT: The Slimeball Death Panel
Reposted from Richieville.com