Sunday rerun: Calling All Earthlings

Sometimes I like to pretend that I'm not from here, meaning earth.

So I'll take a turn looking at things as if I were ET <<(and not Ernest Tubb) and wondering about things that people on earth do.

Such as...they will spend untold fortunes on 92" television screens. That's 7 feet, six inches of video right on your wall, 5 inches taller than Shaquille O'Neal laid diagonally. (And he probably has been.) Twin speakers the size of Chevy Volts, with a sound system so loud that you expect to see that THX guy rolling out of your kitchen, sandwich in hand, ready to crank it up.

Then they sit down and watch their shows on their cell phones.

Some Americans give birth to babies and, from the moment that young Brattleboro emerges, they want to help the child establish his own identity in the world.  No slave of the mass culture, he! 

Then they mail away for a baby toupee for the kid to wear.

And how many times have you seen this?  Slim and trim, toned and zoned, they strut into Jittery Joe's Java Hut for a cuppa mocha java and a protein bar.  They're talking about their workout, their carb intake, their plan to reduce their BMI to HFA (hardly friggin' anything!) 

Then they take their coffee and their snack outside to have with their cigarette.

And of course, you'll see earthlings NOT calling 911 when someone is having a coronary occlusion or a baby, saying that it's better to put the patient in the Explorer and drive on over to the medical center.

And then a week later they'll call 911 to ask if the medic crew outside saving their neighbor's life could be a little quieter as they save the guy's life.