Free What I'd Say to the Martians by Jack Handey

able to infiltrate the very liquids we drink. They are called yeast, and we consume them by the billions, hour after hour, every day.
    Other creatures are larger, but elusive. When you get up in the middle of the night for more bites of the chicken piece you left on the counter, you may have to fight for it with a raccoon. One reason we rarely notice these furry interlopers is they come and go through holes in the wall. Also, a lot of times when we fight them we’re drunk, and later we think we imagined it.
    You might suppose that at least when you climb into bed you would be free of the animal kingdom. But suppose again. There, too, they are watching us, crawling on us, waiting for the opportunity to bite. These are our cats, swarming over us throughout the night.
    No doubt some of these invaders can be harmful. One animal can literally eat its way through the wood that holds the house together. This is the common beaver. He is attracted to the water overflowing from our basements, which he tries to dam up. Another harmful pest is the moth, which can fly in your mouth when you’re taking a nap.
    But many of the creatures living in our homes can be beneficial. Take drifters, for example. Sometimes they will go to the store to get you things (although they usually “lose” the change). Termites will often leave piles of sawdust around, which can be used to soak up stains. And mice entertain us by playing musical instruments. No, wait, I’m thinking of cartoon mice.
    Through millions of years of evolution, animals have adapted to thrive in every corner of our world, from our empty Cup-a-Soup containers to the dried-up branches and dusty ornaments of our Christmas trees. They inhabit the bristles of our toothbrushes, the bristles of our whiskers, and the bristles of our cheese.
    The temptation is to want to do something about them. But what? You can throw cats off the bed, but they just jump right back on. Virtually every kind of alcoholic beverage has yeast swimming in it. You can scrub the crabs off your body, but what are you going to do about your bedsheets, or your sweatpants? Wash them too? You could drive yourself crazy.
    Even if we could get rid of all these animals with a magic wand, would we want to? Yes, of course we would—why would you even ask that? But maybe the best answer, as with most things, is just to do nothing at all.
    However, that’s not what the health department thinks. They have hit me with a large fine and ordered me to “clean up” my property. But ultimately we have to ask ourselves: Do we want to live in some soulless antiseptic world ruled by futuristic robots, where dishes are cleaned every day and sinks and toilets are an eerie, gleaming white? I don’t think that we do. I think people would rather live in homes where animals roam wild and free, in our hair, in our bags of things, and in our underpants.

Glug-Glug-Glug
     
    T he glug-glug-glug symbol is one of the most time-honored of all the human hand gestures. This is the sign you use when you want to indicate—often behind someone’s back—that he has been drinking. Usually, your clenched fingers form a “bottle,” and your extended thumb a spout. Then you hold the “bottle” up and “drink.” You can make a glug-glug-glug sound if you want to. It’s up to you.
    Scientists say glug-glug-glug is preceded in evolution only by the “over there” point and the “pee-yew” nose squeeze. Glug-glug-glug has been used throughout history. It is said that when Patrick Henry declared, “Give me liberty or give me death!” half the people behind him did the glug-glug-glug sign. When Abraham Lincoln was shot, the first usher to reach him mistakenly did the glug-glug-glug sign. During the 1960s, people experimented with new gestures, and glug-glug-glug was replaced by the “toke” symbol. But today glug-glug-glug is stronger than ever.
    All I know is glug-glug-glug broke my heart.
    It started when I went to try to get a job with