I have been repeating myself a lot lately. No, it is not because I have become more forgetful. It is because many of the folks I talk to seem to have been attacked by an alien life form that has come to inhabit their body. It is actually frightening to see this invasion-taking place on otherwise happy, healthy people.
The first sign of the infestation is when you try to talk with the person and you hear them respond with "huh" or "what" or "do what" or "what did you say." This occurs simultaneously with them reaching up and pawing at their ear or ears. On closer examination, you can see the alien has attached itself to the person's ears and in some cases, you can see the alien's tentacles coming from the ear and leading down and leaching onto the person's cell phone.
In some instances, the alien has not fully matured yet and you can only see the small white body of the alien coming out of the person's ears. I guess it has not grown its tentacles yet in order to grab hold of the person's mobile device. However, it certainly has begun to nest in the audio canal of the victim.
It reminds me a lot of the aliens featured in the 1956 classic science fiction film, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." For those of you unfamiliar with the film it's about an extraterrestrial invasion during which alien plant spores fall from space and grow into large seed pods, each one capable of reproducing a duplicate replacement copy of each human. As each pod reaches full development, it assimilates the physical characteristics, memories, and personalities of each sleeping person placed near it; these duplicates, however, are devoid of all human emotion. These replacements are known as "pod people."
I could not sit back and let my fellow man be taken over by marauding aliens so I began to investigate the phenomenon. After the person clawed the alien from their ear and was able to hear me speaking to them, I told them to throw the alien to the ground and I would stomp on it and kill it for them. My intention was to free them from the control of these evil invaders. Much to my surprise, the person said they did not need saving. That it was simply headphones or earbuds and that they were listening to music or news programs. The reason they said they could not hear me was because the quality of the sound on these devices was so great that it blocked out all other noise.
At first, I was relieved that my friends were not being harvested by evil E.T.s bent on human domination. But then I began to do some additional research. The newest and most popular form of these "headphones" are made by Apple and guess what they are called, Air Pods.
Granted that could be just some weird coincidence. However, when I dug a little deeper about what my friends were "listening to" many of them said they were called podcasts. My biggest fears seem to be coming true. We are becoming "pod people!"
Wait, what is that noise? They're here already! You're next! You're next! Run for your. ...
Obviously, I am completely wrong about the fine quality listening devices that all my other carbon-based life forms enjoy. I strongly encourage my fellow homo sapiens to go out and invest all your currency, known as money, in these totally, benign instruments. You can benefit from listening to your audio sensations while you enjoy ingesting during your favorite protein and carbohydrate-feeding period.
Nanu nanu.
Editorial on 01/19/2020