Joel walked up the steps to his house, each step feeling like he was marching through a few yards of swampland. The strain of the high-pressure workplace had taken a toll on his physical condition, and to put it simply, he was beat. All he wanted to do was grab a beer and watch some television. He put his coat under his other arm as he dug into his pocket for the keys.
As he advanced the key to the lock, he realized that the front door was slightly open. Joel always made a point of locking the door every morning, and even if he hadn't locked it, he would have closed it. "God," he thought to himself, "I've probably been robbed. What should I do? I better go to the neighbor's house... Nah, I better make sure I've been hit first... Plus, they don't like me too well after that poodle incident last fall."
Carefully, Joel pushed open his front door and peeked inside. He flipped on a lightswitch by the door, and seeing no signs of a robbery, made his way inside. As he closed the door, he checked the various rooms of his house, and finding nothing wrong, did a double-check, and then checked all the locks on the doors and windows.
As he made his way into the living room, he dropped his beer. And with good reason--- Seated on the couch, where there had formerly been a couple pillows, were five little silvery aliens. "Hey!" Joel exclaimed. "Where are my throw pillows?"
One alien, on the left side of the couch, poked his head from a fort that had been constructed out of the couch cushions. "We have come in search of waffles. Could you direct us to them, please?"
"Huh?" Joel replied. "Waffles? As in a tasty breakfast treat that goes great with fruit or syrup?"
"Leggo my Eggo! Leggo my Eggo!" a few aliens exclaimed in sing-song unison.
"Yes, that is correct," the leader replied, and then sunk back into his cushion house.
"Wait. You're aliens, right?" Joel asked.
"Yeah." one of them said, as he knocked a coaster tray onto the floor.
"And you're looking for waffles?" Joel continued.
"Yeah." another confirmed.
"But..." Joel said. "This doesn't make any sense. Waffles. That's such a random item. This is like a bad rip- off of Douglas Adams or something. But it's not even funny."
"Well, Mr. High-And-Mighty," squawked one alien, "You seem to be the comedy expert around here, why don't YOU come up with a funny item?"
"Who's Douglas Adams?" one alien asked. "Did he write that book Shampoo Planet?"
"No, that's Douglas Copeland, you goof," replied another alien.
"Wha-What?" Joel sputtered. "But, why are you here? What is this? Why do you want waffles?"
"Well, I guess we don't want waffles anymore, it's not FUNNY enough for you," blurted one alien who hadn't spoken yet, but was quite obviously getting riled up and kept looking like he WANTED to speak, but when he would get a chance someone else would talk, which didn't help to calm him down any. "So at least part of your mystery is solved."
"I suppose he'll make me put the cushions back, next," remarked the leader from inside his fort. "Just like my mother used to."
"But, you're the leader of this expedition, you shouldn't have to take orders from him!" shouted one alien who was obviously kissing up to his superior, probably because he wanted a promotion or larger living quarters.
"Wait! Stop!" yelled Joel, who was still having enough trouble with the initial shock of aliens in place of his pillows. "Why are you here? Do you have something to offer mankind? Are you going to kill me if I don't give you waffles? There's a Lucky's down the street, I could go and buy you waffles. Blueberry ones, even."
"Kill you?" contemplated the leader. "I didn't think of that. Anyway, we wouldn't do that, there'd be no point. And it's too late for the waffles now, so quit trying to pretend you didn't insult us."
"No!" Joel stuttered. "Waffles are perfectly fine! There's nothing wrong with waffles! They even have strawberry ones now, they're next to the frozen orange juice!"
"No, no," cut in the leader, "it's too late for that now. The waffle issue is over now; you're only making matters worse."
"You might want to clean up that beer before the stain sets in," commented an alien who was flipping through a People magazine.
"Huh?" said Joel, looking down, and then, "Oh! Yeah, I guess I better... Good thing I got StainGuard on my carpets when I bought them, eh?"
"Is that the commercial where the little kid spills grape juice all over the carpet, and the mother says, "That's okay!" and they all laugh knowingly?" asked the alien who had wanted to speak earlier, but now that he's had his say, he was much more laid back.
"Probably," mumbled Joel, as he ran to the kitchen to get paper towels.
As he returned, the alien who had been kissing up earlier pointed to the paper towels and started laughing, "He's got teddy bears on his paper towels!"
"Hey!" exclaimed the alien who was now reading Time magazine, "There's nothing wrong with that! Colorful prints on paper towels can help spice up the decor of an otherwise drab aspect of the kitchen!"
"Yeah!" exclaimed the alien who was obviously very relaxed at this point, and not overly eager to speak out, having already had his say.
"But, how did you get into my house? Did you use a transporter device from your space ship?" asked Joel, who was more confused than ever, primarily because there were aliens squabbling about paper towel patterns in his living room.
"We forced open the front door by picking the lock," said the leader. "Didn't you notice the door was open? We couldn't figure out how to lock it again."
"I noticed it!" retaliated Joel.
"Hey, don't get defensive about it," said an alien.
"Well, I think I have a right to get defensive about this!" exclaimed Joel. "I come home after a long day, I just want to watch TV and have a soda, and then I find my house broken into and there's a bunch of aliens on my couch!"
"Hey, I resemble that remark!" said an alien, and the rest began giggling.
"This isn't funny!" said Joel. "What gives you the right to just march in here and take over my house?"
"Who's taking over your house? We're not taking over your house," said the leader. "Besides, we're aliens. We can do whatever we want."
"What!" shouted Joel. "That doesn't give you the right to do whatever you want, just because you're aliens! You're no better than anybody else! How would you like it if I went into your spaceship and messed up your furniture and got cookie crumbs all over the couch and caused you to spill beer on the carpet?"
"Ha!" said an alien who was playing with a bronze statue of a giraffe on the coffee table. "We WISH there was carpet in the ship! Well, good carpet, at least."
"That carpet is just there for decoration," commented the leader, as he used a smaller cushion to make a door in his fort. "There's no way the galactic legion would spring for nice, plush carpet, like here."
"Look," cut in Joel, "I'm really tired and I've had just about enough of you. Now if you don't leave now, I'll... I'll call the police!"
"They wouldn't believe you," snickered the relaxed alien, as he stretched out his legs on the footstool.
"I'll tell them there's an intruder in the house," threatened Joel. "They'd believe that."
"Oh cripes!" one alien said, surprisingly enough. "We didn't think of that!" He and the other aliens jumped up, and the leader burst out of the fort, sending cushions flying around the room, one hitting the lamp and knocking the shade sideways. They then proceeded to go to the front door, at which point they exited the house.
Joel sort of just stood there for a few minutes, and then went to work putting the cushions back. He then cleaned up the beer and wiped the crumbs off of the chairs. He found an empty package of Keebler Elf "Ernie Loves Fudge" cookies in the corner, next to the potted plant.
"Funny," thought Joel, as he picked up the crumpled bag, "I thought they stopped making this kind a few years ago."
Joel then searched his house a final time, and sat down to watch some TV. There was a marathon of Spanish-dubbed episodes of "I Love Lucy" on Nickelodeon.
And he never did find his throw pillows.