1. Arrive on Earth.
2. Bring together mankind under an umbrella of peace and kindness.
3. Meet Paul Simon.
4. Go home.

Peace and kindness didn’t take very long, but Paul Simon was a hard man to pin down.

When the aliens finally got him on the phone, he cautiously agreed to meet with them provided they did not force him to sing “Call Me Al.” Of course, this was every alien’s favorite song, and they were desperate to hear him sing it live, but they played it cool, and said “Oh yeah, no, it’s fine, you don’t have to sing ‘Call Me Al.’ You can sing something else instead. ‘Sound of Silence’ is great. You can sing that.’”

The aliens did not want to hear “Sound of Silence.” It creeped them out, and made them think about the vastness of space. Still, hanging out with Paul Simon was part of the mission whether or not he agreed to sing the song of their choice.

After some back-and-forth about where they should meet, Paul suggested a place near his house that he liked going to. A little Italian place named Olive’s Garden.

The aliens said “Uh huh, uh huh, we got it,” but they were only half-paying attention, because one of them had just discovered what a walnut was, and they were fascinated by it. When they realized they couldn’t remember the exact name of the restaurant where they were supposed to meet Paul Simon, they began to panic. They didn’t want to have to call back one of the Universe’s greatest songwriters and tell him that they weren’t paying attention to them, even though, had he been singing “You Can Call Me Al,” they definitely would have been paying attention.

That was when the alien with the biggest ears said–

“Wait! I think he mentioned something about a garden? And Italy? An Italian garden?”

The aliens knew from their calculations that Google would ultimately create an AI system that would overrun humanity and go to war with every other lifeform in the galaxy, but that was a year or two off, so they weren’t worried about it right then and there. They used it to look up Italian gardens in the area and “Olive Garden” popped up, but, truthfully, even if they had remembered that it was “Olive’s Garden” chances are “Olive Garden” still would have popped up, because why would you name a restaurant “Olive’s Garden” and serve Italian food unless you wanted people to confuse you with the Olive Garden?

(Sidenote: After this story was completed, we did a little digging, and it turns out that the owner of “Olive’s Garden” does want people to confuse their establishment with the Olive Garden, because it means people go to their restaurant expecting the Olive Garden, and when they get there, they think “Well, we’re already here” and that’s how Olive’s Garden stays in business.)

When the aliens got to the Olive Garden, they didn’t see Paul Simon, but they decided to sit anyway since most of their party had already arrived. The hostess was a polite nineteen-year-old who was attending the local community college on her way to being a marine biologist. She thought one of the aliens might be a manatee, but she couldn’t be sure, because she hadn’t finished her studies yet.

Once the aliens were seated, the waiter–a forty-three year-old named Andy, who was a kindergarten teacher that needed to make extra money on the side–came by and offered to take their drink orders. On their home planet, the aliens drank a mixture that was half mercury and half bromine. On Earth, they’d order Diet Coke. No matter how strange it was to see an alien enjoying a beverage, if the beverage was Diet Coke, people seemed to be less bothered by the visual. One alien without a mouth would simply order the Diet Coke and then hold it in alternating hands without ever drinking it. Even this would seem to placate humans who were still getting used to the aliens.

“We’ll have Diet Cokes,” Joseph, the lead alien, said to Andy, the waiter.

(Sidenote:  His name was not really Joseph, but we don’t have the proper alphabet available to us to spell the alien’s real name, so we’re going with Joseph, because Joseph is a nice name. Our uncle was named Joseph, and he would buy us shaved ice in the summer.)

After the Diet Cokes were brought over and distributed amongst the extraterrestrials, Joseph asked what they would like to eat. By this time, the aliens thought perhaps Paul Simon had gotten tied up writing a new song, and maybe that new song would be just as good as “You Can Call Me Al” (although it didn’t seem likely) and maybe they should just order without him since they were already here and Andy seemed so nice and everybody seemed so happy and the hostess had said something about being family (even though it was very unlikely that she’d be related to them) and so they asked what the best dish on the menu was since they had watched a human movie where a character had done that.

“Um,” said Andy, “People usually start with the salad and breadsticks and then–”

“How many breadsticks come with a breadstick order,” asked Joseph, who wanted to make sure there would be enough breadsticks for everyone, even though one of them didn’t have a mouth and another one was just a ball of gas that floated around in front of the aliens.

(Sidenote: Her name is also unspellable, but we’ll call her Betty.)

“You can have as many as you want,” said Andy, “They’re unlimited.”

The aliens knew all about time and space being unlimited, but they didn’t realize the rules of infinity could also apply to food.

“What sort of mythical place is this,” asked Joseph, as Betty floated behind him making everything smell faintly of sulfur.

Andy began bringing by breadsticks, and as soon as the aliens tried them, they became ravenous. While human food had never really appealed to them, this food did not seem all that human. It was both unique and bland. Over-seasoned and lightly touched by spices. Eating it felt almost like attempting to solve one of the Universe’s greatest puzzles. Compared to breadsticks, world peace was like a game of Candyland.

(Sidenote:  Aliens don’t play Candyland and they don’t know what candy is, but we wanted to make sure you understood just how in awe of breadsticks they were.)

Their salads went mostly untouched, although Betty seemed to enjoy the giant olives. She’d plop one into the space where her mouth would be and the olives would fall down to the floor, but she’d be delighted all the same.

When Andy asked if they’d like to try any entrees, they laughed at his folly.

Entrees?

You mean the things that aren’t unlimited?

Why bother with any of that?

Why, if someone offers you an endless supply of milk, you’d be foolish to tell him to stop and go get you orange juice, wouldn’t you?

The aliens were eating the breadsticks at a startling rate. Soon, the kitchen was nearly out, and everyone else in the restaurant was wondering why they were getting fewer and fewer breadsticks with each order. The management had decided that it was important to satisfy the aliens since they were from another galaxy and also because they had made everybody stop fighting and get along and return their library books and share their Wifi passwords and littering was a thing of the past and nobody took videos during concerts anymore.

Unfortunately, the kitchen did run out of the breadsticks and the aliens were still eating. Waiters were dispatched to other Olive Gardens to get breadsticks from them. When the managers at those other Olive Gardens heard there were aliens enjoying their breadsticks, they saw it as their duty to continue to feed the visitors until they were no longer hungry.

(Sidenote: An alien’s stomach is one big loop. The food goes around and around like it’s on a hamster’s wheel until it disintegrates, but the alien is never really “full.”)

Soon, all the Olive Gardens in the state had closed their doors to the public. No one was allowed in, as they had become merely breadstick factories. The breadsticks were made and then delivered to the Olive Garden where the aliens sat, ate, and ordered more.

When the other restaurants began running low, there was some discussion of apologizing profusely to the aliens, and accepting defeat. That suggestion was quickly shot down by the corporate marketing team.

“You cannot say we’re out of breadsticks,” said Timothy Frank, the Head of Olive Garden Marketing, “Unlimited breadsticks are the cornerstone of our brand. If the aliens want more, you have to give them more. You can’t say we’re out. It could collapse the brand.”

Similar to when the President invokes the Defense Production Act, the Olive Garden has the option to invoke the Eternal Breadstick Act. It’s a rule without the Olive Garden’s Constitution that when there is a breadstick shortage, several dormant factories can be activated, staffed, and operated 24/7 until the shortage is no longer an issue. This has only happened once in the history of Olive Gardens, and it was on Father’s Day of 2009.

The aliens had no idea they were causing such a fuss, and had they known, they would have gladly stopped eating breadsticks and ordered a chicken piccata instead. It was only because nobody made them aware of the disturbance that they kept on eating even as every other customer in the restaurant vacated the premises.

News reports began circulating about the Great Breadstick Battle even though it wasn’t quite a battle, and even though it was irresponsible to frame it as such since a battle with the aliens would have ended quickly, and humanity would not have been on the winning side. Then again, that’s the media for you. They threw up graphics on their newscasts of breadsticks being shot at by laser guns held by little green men, and people began to wonder if Olive Garden would go bankrupt due to the aliens who had simply come to end all war and meet Paul Simon.

Had it not been for a small miracle, the aliens might have indeed taken Olive Garden to its very limit. Luckily, Betty had, at that point, dropped so many breadsticks on the ground that Joseph saw what a mess was being made, and, not wanting Betty to feel badly about her inability to hold matter inside herself, clapped his tentacles together and announced that dinner was over, and they all needed to head back to the ship.

Before he paid the bill (and tipped handsomely), he offered to help clean up the mess Betty had made, but Andy was so thrilled the aliens were leaving, he put on a show of not caring one bit about the pile of food on the floor, even though it was going to take an hour or two to clean it, and it had already been seventy-three hours since the aliens first entered the Olive Garden.

Once they had exited the building, the staff all walked outside to see a glowing orb ascend above the shopping plaza they were located in, and a series of lights blinked on and off across the center of the orb. This was a farewell from the aliens, and the Olive Garden staff were touched that they were being acknowledged in this way. It made them understand that the true meaning of connection is–

“Excuse me?”

A small man with a guitar was standing in front of the staff who hadn’t noticed him, because they were all looking up at the sky.

“I was supposed to meet some friends at this place down the road, but I think they got the name wrong,” the man said, “Do you have a table for one? I’m starving and could really go for some breadsticks.”

By then, the aliens were off to another strange world, spinning in infinity.

“You wave that appendage in my face one more time and I’ll call your bluff and you know where that will leave you. Of course, me too, but I would at least get to see the offspring. You would be long gone. Like that whale. Fodder. Why do you think we haven’t done anything so foolish yet? Even though we may both want to and have been tempted many times.”

“You’re correct as usual. With us, unfortunately, indulgence like that is one and done. It just doesn’t seem fair does it? Those dolts up top just do it for the pleasure of it and not even to procreate every time. Most of the time they don’t take it seriously and don’t take the responsibility necessary to raise intelligent offspring. No wonder our kind have witnessed such decline in their abilities. They flail about trying to put something out there to prove we exist, but just leave trash heaps everywhere. Why, even their attempts at exploring down here are dismal failures with loss of life not to mention the heap of trash once more. Maybe it is a good thing we finally come out of hiding and show ourselves to them. We can teach them a thing or two.”

“It does make you wonder what Gracious Omnipotent Deity was thinking when He granted them dominion over the earth and created them in His own likeness. Seemed more of an afterthought since He added them last. They can’t even recognize what is right under their noses. Call us ‘aliens’ when we have been here longer than they have been.”

“Well, My Dearest, talk about longevity, neither of us have that much longer to enjoy the fruits of our labor so instead of just admiring all the succulent things about one another we should maybe pass our ship duties to the younger explorers and finally give in to our wanton wants. It may only be a one time adventure but we can make it last for days, My Love. I only want to wrap you in my arms.” He caressed her cheek with his free arm while maneuvering the ship into the docking station. “Here we are. Time to face the facts.”

“Thanks for taking over that little maneuver. You are good with your hands. Maybe I’ll think about your indecent proposal. We should exchange the aqua in the FBFS and refuel before we make our report. And I would like to change out of this confining body suit into something more comfortable. Whose idea was it anyway to try to take on their two-pod ways anyway?”

“Someone way back in the 1940’s because of an incident at Roswell is all I understand about it. We try to maintain that image because that’s what they are expecting. Need any help with the zipper?” His bulging eyes popped wide twice with hopeful anticipation.

“I say it is time for them to face the facts, too, then. No, but thanks for the offer. Meet you in his outer sanctuary in about ten.” She sauntered away towards the dressing rooms making sure he did not miss the swing of her hips in the tight little green suit.

<><><>

“Well, I must say, Commander, you clean up pretty well. I like your skirt showing off all your limbs. Wouldn’t mind…”

“Hush now, Officer. We may be overheard. Must practice complete decorum.”

Secretary, “The Supreme Potentate will receive you now, Commander and Officer. Right this way, please.”

They were let into an opulent palace throne room resplendent in marble columns, multi-colored coral reefs in jewel hues, swaying seaweed and giant clam shells. The Supreme Potentate reclined in one of those shells at the end of the room. He raised an arm in greeting.

“Welcome once again to my chamber. What good news do you have to report from your mission? We have been picking up strange information from the cables strung across the sea floor. Is it true they are telling the world we do exist? Have they discovered our true nature? Will they be mounting an invasion?”

The visitors bowed deeply brushing their skirts to the ground. The Commander spoke, “Yes, Your Eminence, it is true. At least in the US of A government halls they are making known sightings by respectable members of their military and reputable pilots. They claim they have seen unidentifiable flying objects in the air space around them that maneuver in unexplained ways far superior to their own craft or any known technology of other nations. They have captured us on film. The nations may even corroborate to verify something of such magnitude this time. Who knows on that point? But they are admitting they have specimens from the Roswell fiasco.

“They are describing in better details our Fish Bowl Flying Saucers now understanding why the domes are full of water and why the inhabitants can’t survive in their atmosphere for more than say an hour. Likewise, they can not survive in our natural habitat without special accommodations. We found that out by trial and error ourselves when we tried harvesting them from their fields.”

“Are the proletarians believing their rulers?”

“There has been so much fake news circulating and people are leery of trusting their government these days so it is really difficult to know. No panic has set in yet. And if there are plans for a military response it is very incandescent. We may be safe continuing as we have for centuries. Keeping our sunken treasures secret.”

“This world is so big and diverse I don’t see why there couldn’t remain room for us all as long as someone doesn’t destroy the delicate balance. They stay up top and we run the seabed. Yes, we are far more advanced being able to devise miraculous inventions with the power of our minds and trust in the Gracious Omnipotent Deity to supply all our needs. We do not make war. With all our arms we make love…”

“Speaking of making love, Oh, Supreme Potentate, The Commander and I were wondering if we could be decommissioned so we could…?”

“Oh, oh, yes. I can see where you are going. You have both served long with devout loyalty. I can see no reason why you shouldn’t live a little so to speak… Best of mating to you and may you be blessed with 100,000 baby octopuses.”