Here’s an embarrassing story,

So this one night, Dan and I were getting ready for bed and both boys were asleep. It was… maybe around midnight? I don’t remember the exact time, but I remember it was late because Dan and I were binging Hoarders and we both agreed that she shouldn’t have watched the last episode and were about to be exhausted the next day.

Anyway, it was late.

So I’m doing the nightly routine, I’m brushing my teeth, taking out my contacts, etc. etc. And I heard a familiar sound coming from the hallway outside of my bedroom. The sound that parents most dread in the middle of the night. The pitter patter of little feet. I was trying to make Dan go check instead of me. But he had ALSO taken his contacts out and is conveniently more blind than me, so it was my turn to do the dirty deed. I crossed my fingers and hoped that no one was sick and that this would be the only waking instance for the night.

I went into the hallway and it was kind of dim… but I could make out the outline of one of the kids. But they look so dang similar I wasn’t sure which one. Plus I had my contacts out, so I had to squint really hard as I inched closer.

And then I realized… this was not actually one of my kids in green pajamas… this was a teeny tiny green man.

I was like Okay… what in the actual H-E-double-hockey-sticks am I looking at here?? I blinked a couple of times. As if that would help. Eyes not working? Have you tried turning them off and on? That wouldn’t have worked for blind-as-a-bat Dan, he would’ve picked up whatever it was and put it in one of our kid’s beds.

So I’m face to face with this… whatever it is. I’m guessing a toy. But I had heard the footsteps. Distinctly childlike footsteps. So I get closer to the green thing, trying to see if my child is hiding behind it or something.

AND THE GREEN THING TALKS.

I jumped so freaking high it’s a wonder why I wasn’t immediately drafted into the WMBA.

“Hello?” Don’t know why I said that, I mean clearly it was a toy.

“Take me to your leader,” it responded.

Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyy so obviously this was a weird ate-cheese-before-bed kind of dream.

“Take me to your leader.”

So after a a failed attempt at slowing my heart rate I was like, “Okay… so that’s gonna be hard to do…”

“Why?” it asked.

“Because, well, first off… there’s not exactly a ‘leader of Earth’. There are hundreds of leaders of different parts of the world.”

The little green man rubbed it’s chin and went, “So it’s compartmentalized? Like a mini-mall?”

“Wut?”

“Take me to the leader of this room.”

I blinked rapidly because OKAY WHAT EXACTLY WAS HAPPENING HERE. Finally I shook my head and was like, “Uh… okay… sorry, I was not prepared to have an encounter with an extra-terrestrial today.”

His jaw dropped and he slapped his hand on his chest. “You can’t say that! That’s an extremely offensive term to my people!”

“Oh sorry, sorry, sorry!! I’m not accustomed with Martian culture.”

“We’re not even FROM Mars! Wow. WOW.”

And then I watched him teleport onto my front lawn where he started recording a rant video about me on his smart phone.

Sooooo… if an intergalactic war starts… That was my bad guys.