How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Yet another honorable mention from www.demockeracy.com for a version of the following piece:

European astronomers recently discovered a new planet outside our solar system that they surmise may be habitable. The following intercepted intergalactic transmission leads credence to that speculation:

"How I Spent My Summer Vacation" by Zorax, Jr.

Every year when the two moons of Meepsor are in alignment, my whole family goes on our summer vacation. However, because my dad just lost his job at the transporter factory, this year we could only afford to visit the planet Earth.

Earth is a small planet in a remote solar system centered by an unexceptional star. It has plenty of water and lots of carbon-based life forms although my dad says he’s seen smarter bipeds on the dark side of Remulon.

My dad says he heard the Earthlings complaining all the time about something they called "global warming." But he said it was nothing compared to the fiery rings of Zethyr and he couldn’t understand why they were all worried about that anyway when there were at least two asteroids on a collision course with their planet.

My dad also says he’s never seen such a poorly run, disorganized planet in his life. And that includes Crylon and the slum planets of Alpha Centauri.

Instead of one planetary government, Earthlings have about 170 "countries." We saw something called the United Nations but my mom said that was the funniest oxymoron she’d heard since Sector Seven’s League of Planets.

Sometimes my mom and dad went down to the planet’s surface for a visit and my sister Renar and I would get really bored. So we’d teleport some "humans" onto our ship. But even that was no fun because they all just wanted to get probed or have chips planted in their brains.

When there was nothing else to do, we would watch their crude entertainment medium called television. Most of their "shows" were primitive but there was one funny one we watched regularly. It starred an Earthling named Bush and he pretended to run Earth’s biggest country called the United States. Every time Bush tried to do something, he screwed it up but he’d never admit that he’d made a mistake. It was kind of like "I Love Lucynder" back home except way stupider.

This summer’s vacation trip was about the worst one I can remember. Except maybe for that time mom and dad sent me to that summer camp near the black hole in the core of Seyfert Galaxy. That really sucked — big time.