by: Chefelf

This is a story that Nate dreamed, and then wrote down, convinced he had a top-notch short story on his hands. In the cold light of dawn, the story turned out to have been pretty mediocre, and a number of really cool details, like the pronuciation guide for the word "moustache," didn't make a whole lot of sense. Still, as speculative fiction goes it's top-notch.

Examine This... Earth

A ship navigated past a planet. Its captain had a big purple moustache (accent on first syllable).

"Examine this... Earth."

"Earth?" said one of the beings on the bridge. "What is this... Earth?"

"A strange planet," explained the captain, walking about the bridge. "It's dominant race is called humanity. Strange customs. We've studied them and we're only able to deduct this..."

"What, sir?"

"They like their pearls."

"I beg your pardon?"

"They have pearl-like objects in their mouths and when ever they're happy they show them off to everyone--"

"Bizzare," said the purplish being with a moustache. "Tell me more about their... pearls."

"Well... they have several objects that they use to clean them. One is like a string which they scrape between them for some strange reason. Another is a stick with bristles at the end. They rub this across their pearls with a special soap to clean them."

"Wow! And..."

"And they have special people to clean these pearls. And before they go to see these people they rub the bristled stick across their pearls twice as hard."

"Amazing!"

"But other than that we feel that this species deserves extinction. Drop the bombs commander!"

"Aye sir." Soon the oceans and continents parted in one huge billowing cloud of flame.

"Awaiting your orders sir," said the commander.

"Excellent. Set a course for Andromeda, I hear they have this strange thing called hair..."