When the first saucer landed the little green men didn’t say “take us to your leaders,” but “which way is Hollywood?” I suspected an ulterior motive, but couldn’t figure out what. I couldn’t believe they had come to make it big time on the silver screen but then again I was one of those people who thought the movie Titanic would be a flop. Now my youngest daughter has posters of greenie heartthrobs all over her room. And I can’t turn on the T.V. or open a paper without seeing a smiling green mug.

Hollywood’s leading men were out of work and outspoken against the “green invasion”. Tom Cruise was short, like them, and had that same insincere smile, an act, a friendly veneer that I always thought hid something, some secret. So I thought if his complaints weren’t so sad they’d be funny. Throngs of young men were coloring their skin green and wearing their hair done up in a kind of cone to mimic the Martians’ domed heads. Tall guys had it rough for once.

Apparently the Martian’s hadn’t heard of monogamy. The tabloids were full of their exploits but even that couldn’t quell the frenzy.

The awards circuit that year was full of little green men in shades and Yves Saint Lauren suits with tall starlets on their arms. My eldest girl brought home a boy done up in that stupid green body powder. Even my wife tried to get me to admit the green men were so cute and stylish. We fought over why I wouldn’t consider changing my hairstyle.

Some greenie band held a concert at the new Shea Stadium. It was like Beatlemania all over again, times a thousand. But still I wondered, why?

Until the next day when an Armada of saucers arrived. One over each of our cities. The invasion I had always feared had come. But not how I thought.

“Daughters of Earth,” the Martian ambassador announced on every channel on every station, “the sons of Mars have arrived and they all need brides.”

- END-