Things I did as a kid #11

I don’t know when it started (I remember doing it in our house in Sibella Road so it would have been about ’83) but as a kid I used to pretend that aliens were watching me on their otherworldly TVs. Not in a creepy, “I think we’ve found the next probe victim” way but like the Truman Show, the whole of another planet was glued to their xeno-visions watching my every move. I would be playing with lego on the floor of the living room trying as hard as I could to appear unaware that another world was watching my every move. I recall laying out a red and a yellow four-by-one block next to each other and moving my hand slowly from one to the other with a quizzical look on my face. The whole time giggling on the inside as I imagined little red men on the edge of their seat waiting to see which block I chose like it was the answer to “Who shot JR?”

I think my internal logic was stolen from an episode of The Outer Limits or Twilight Zone where mundane things like brushing my teeth or walking to school were exotic to E.T. and so kept them captivated by my every move:

- Xegog what’s the earthling whelp doing now?
- Quiet Zepfywl, he’s about to eat a spoonful of Frosties!

Then at some point the aliens turned all Dr Who villain of the week and decided that they liked the look of this place we call Earth and began to plan an invasion. However, in a plot point that the hack M. Night Shyamalan stole for the not-entirely-terrible Signs, they were afraid of water* so every time I showered (it was about ’85 by this stage so I was still pre-teen and I didn't know there was anything creepy about them having a camera in the bathroom) I would hold my elbows at my sides and point my arms out in front of me with my hands balled into fists but with my little fingers extended. This C-3P0 impression caused water to run down my arms and make it look like water was running out of my pinkie. I think I even said out loud a couple of times, “Everyone can fire water out of their fingers but we save it for emergencies and only ever practice in the shower.” I envisioned the Morks up on Alien Prime cursing their luck that the one interesting planet in the universe was protected by life forms that could shoot water out of their digits.

This tells us two things:
A) Thanks to me we’ve escaped the yoke of alien oppression these last twenty-odd years and;
2) M. Night’s ‘plot points' are so weak that even an eight year-old could have come up with them.


* Signs came out in 2002 so I think after six years the statute of limitations on spoilers for this has passed