Author: David C. Nutt

It was an alien invasion, not in the sense of “War of the Worlds” but more like what historians called the “British Invasion” but without the Beatles. What invaded us was close to five million overprivileged alien tourists, all here for one reason: to inhale us. No, this is no metaphor. They are here to literally, sniff us out. They love our scents.

Turns out, the rest of the galaxy doesn’t smell like much…some rot here, smoke from different kind of fires, and the odd change in air quality differing from planet to planet based on what kind of dust and water was indigenous. One wonders why evolution gave the various human adjacent aliens olfactory senses at all.

Their cultures had no flowers. No essential oils. No animal scents. No complex pheromones. No body odors. Just a dull scent palate, at that was it for the galaxy.

Except for earth, and well, us.

My son and daughter-in-law ran a candle shop, a business they started when their profitable cleaning franchise closed due to the home robot revolution. They were doing all right but struggling.
Then the invasion came. Now my son and daughter-in-law have more money than they actually know what to do with, and that’s after spoiling me and his mother (and the rest of the family) absolutely rotten. But it doesn’t stop there; and it’s not a good thing.

One cannot walk down the street without being accosted by aliens of one stripe or another wanting to come closer for a sniff. It doesn’t matter who we are or what we’re doing. Lovers walking arm-in-arm, business folk rushing off to a power lunch. Kids on bikes or boards careening down the sidewalks. DOT workers filling potholes. Without so much as a I-beg-your-pardon we all get a nose shoved somewhere on our bodies, going beyond any accidental violation of personal space. It has gotten so bad the UN has complained to several off world governments and banned at least three alien species from coming to earth.

The rest of the galaxy doesn’t see it that way. Nope. Think we are being “primitive,” and “oversensitive.” The common view is, and I quote from one of pamphlet of a consortium of planets, “Earth has no right to deny the greater galactic community this incredible resource.”

Things are getting more and more out of hand. A tour group of aliens over-ran a gym last week. Bad idea, especially when coming between powerlifters and their work outs. Two humans injured, 16 aliens put in the hospital before police arrived. Four aliens pummeled with baked goods at a farmers market outside of Niece. An enraged crowd in Bangalore tipped over a tour bus. Alien visitors in route to Manitoba, turned away. Hell, its got to be pretty bad if it’s pissing off Canadians. Now, Earth has kicked all the tourists out. The last of the shuttles departed to cheers and jeers.

It’s been almost three months and all of us are finally getting back normal. We’re told by our military folk there are alien battle cruisers on the way, an armada if you will. Fortunately for us the last decade or so of reverse engineering and just plain tech left has put us on an even footing with just about any other species in the galaxy. Maybe even ahead of a few.

All of this because we happen to be the defacto Pot-Poruri of scents for the galaxy. All I know is that all this really stin- no sucks. Yeah, all this really sucks.