Monday, February 23, 2009

The Truth Is Out There....But Probably Not At Blaine and Bo's House

When Good Debaters Go Bad

Or...

Conversations Blaine and I Would Never Admit That We Actually Had...

*

Setting: Just another evening at home in front of the television, watching the History Channel while the lazy cats, Leonard and Little Baby, alternated between either staring rudely at us, sleeping, or waiting plaintively by their saucers in hopes of tuna. The TV documentary is posing yet another theory about what "really" happened at Roswell, New Mexico. Blaine is reclining on the couch--- and I am knitting on yet another pair of house socks--- some funky, picot-topped "boots" called The Leopardies...

Blaine (ever the open minded one, innocently threw out a query): "I wonder if it's really true that a space ship containing four aliens crashed in the Roswell area in the 50's?"

Me (after thinking a minute): "Nope. The known facts don't add up. I don't think it really happened."

Blaine (always loving a good debate): "But how can you be so sure? Surely you don't think that our earth holds the only intelligent life in this vast universe?"

Me (always willing to rise to the challenge of a good debate): "It's not that I think we're the only intelligent life in the universe--- it's just that I don't think that a lone space ship only large enough to hold four little aliens could have crashed in the open desert without further alien involvement. For example, if one did crash out there, where was its 'mothership'?"

Blaine: "Mothership? What makes you think there would have been a mothership?"

Me (sighing and rolling my eyes): "Think about it. Such a small craft as the one they claim was found simply couldn't have stored enough fuel and supplies necessary to travel millions of light years from another galaxy to earth. It would have had to be a utility type shuttlecraft--- one which belonged to some larger transport, like a huge mothership. But no evidence of a mothership was ever found."

Blaine: "Maybe there WAS a mothership and it just wasn't seen--- and it flew away."

Me: "No, the mothership wouldn't have left its crewmembers to die on a foreign planet. If there was a mothership, they would have wanted the aliens' bodies back--- to give them a military funeral or a burial at space or ... or whatever it is that their culture would require."

Blaine (now sighing and rolling his own eyes, doggedly attempting to play the devil's advocate): "What makes you think the little craft--- if there was one--- came from so far away? Maybe a craft that small COULD have had the means to fly here by itself because it came from a nearby planet--- one here in the Milky Way."

Me (leveling a stern glance at Blaine): "If intelligent life with the capability of flying space ships to earth was as close as the Milky Way, then I would think that their friends---or superiors--- would surely have come after them when they didn't return. And also, if they truly were that close, then their communication signals would have been detected. No, there was no mothership; thus, no little space ship with aliens."

Blaine (lustily defending his position): "Maybe there WAS a mothership, but it had to HIDE itself--- because it couldn't allow itself to be detected due to the 'Prime Directive', which prohibits them from interfering with local intelligent life."

Me (still analyzing the logistics, as my mind saw them...): "For God's sake, Blaine, this isn't 'Star Trek'. And besides, even if there were a mothership-- and they DID have a 'Prime Directive'-- then that stupid little shuttlecraft sure as hell wasn't doing a very good job of hiding itself by flying recklessly over the open spaces of New Mexico in broad daylight!"

Blaine (suddenly getting an epiphany): "Or... perhaps we couldn't see the mothership because their technology is so much more advanced than ours that... well... they were able to move back and forth through wormholes... or time warps!"

Me: "Hah! If their technology was so great, then how come their stupid little shuttlecraft crashed in the desert on a bright sunny day, for God's sakes? Hell, there weren't even any thunderstorms..... or fog!"

Blaine (stubbornly): "Maybe their instruments failed because of magnetic forces or something..."

Me (sighing patiently): "Roswell isn't the Bermuda Triangle, Blaine."

(The argument goes no further because it's dinner time. But after dinner both of us return to the living room and resume the evening--- Blaine re-claiming his perch on the couch to continue watching the History Channel (which was now showing a program about the search for the Holy Grail), and me grabbing my laptop to surf 'Ravelry' , to look at all the pretty knitted things....)

Blaine: "Say, that TV show, 'NCIS'--- the one with your hero, Jethro Gibbs--- is coming on after this Holy Grail documentary. I suppose you'll want to watch it, so that you can slobber over him like you usually do."

Me: "Don't be ridiculous---I am soooo over him. I don't idolize him anymore."

Blaine: "Well thank God you've grown out of that stupid phase..."

(I neglect to tell him that the reason I don't idolize Leroy Jethro Gibbs anymore is because I have moved on.... Now, I idolize Castiel, the melancholy angel on the TV show 'Supernatural'.)

( I think Castiel's wings are sooooo dreamy.....)

(And I'm not quite certain... but I might have noticed.... at least, I think I noticed.... that Leonard rolled HIS stupid eyes.....)

*

3 comments:

Maggie said...

LOL, got to love the logic there...If there was life intelligent enough to build that space craft, they would also be intelligent enough to catch on to just how far down on the emotional developmental scale earthlings are and leave us alone to grow up...
the socks are terrific, keep on knitting, Maggie

Christine said...

Wait... I see the "good debaters" part, but not the "gone bad".

I need more fun debates like that one.

Lia Nord said...

I like the discussion! Sounds like me and my brothers. I'm sure one of them has some very "sound" theories about this topic.

I love the leopard socks! Very leopardy! And the Mardi Gras socks--they're all great.