aliens being confused by how humans deal with scents
human: “gonna have to wash this blanket to get rid of that new smell,”
alien: *makes a note that humans prefer to mark objects with familiar scents*
human: “gotta love that new car smell”
alien: *scratches out previous note and replaces it with a question mark*
human: “old books smell so good,”
alien: *increasingly frustrated note taking*
human: “mmm love that new book smell,”
alien: “WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS?”
But BUT
Alien: ah I see that women prefer the scents of fruit and flowers. Odd how the male of this species doesn’t like those smells
Alien: what the fuck is Arctic winter supposed to smell like? Lumberjack????
You press a small stone gargoyle into the child’s hands and say, “This protected me in the dark all my life; now, I give its protection to you.” The next day, you’re dead.
“But Unca John was fine yesterday mommy, what happen!?”
“Well honey, sometimes people just forget to look both ways, and bad things happen. This is why we must always look both ways before crossing.”
As the adults continued talking in the kitchen the child plopped onto the ground, sad they’d never see their favorite relative again. With a quick look, they glance over and see the adults are deep in conversation, not at all paying attention.
Instantly their hand is down their pocket, sliding past the dirty coins and crayons, and wrapping their fingers around something. Sliding it out and standing up on the table a little stone gargoyle looked back at the child.
Softly, a cracking sound echoed from the toy as its face chipped off stone like a baby chick breaking out of its shell. The kid, waiting patiently, already seemed to know what was happening.
“What happened to Unca John? I thought you protected people?”
A slow, small voice answered back, metered and steady. “He made sure I was protecting you first. And when those I protect willingly pass me on, I have to do as they ask.”
“But he’s gone now!”
“He is likely not ‘gone’, just hidden. The world you can now see is more dangerous than you think. Unicorns, vampires, liches, werewolves, like your uncle, your eyes allow you to see through the fog. But because of that, they can almost smell you. That’s where I come in-”
Solid thumps reverberated on the ground. The kid could immediately tell it was the footsteps of something large. “Guess it’s time to show you what I’m made of, kid.”
So I mentioned this story in a previous comment, and it was recommended that I post it here. So here we go…
A couple years back I bought my wife flowers for Valentine’s Day from a national florist that had affiliate florist shops all throughout the country (we’ll call the big company NF for national florist and the local florist LF). So the flowers get delivered, and they look like complete garbage. The arrangement was smaller than advertised, and the flowers were a few days from fresh and wilting. Now, in my opinion, it’s Valentine’s Day, the one day a year a florist NEEDS to be on point. So I call LF to complain. I wanted either a replacement arrangement, or a refund so I could go elsewhere to get decent looking flowers for my wife (the grocery store would have been better honestly).
When I called to complain, the person who answered the phone was very rude right from jump. I have to assume it was a crazy busy day for her, and my arrangement wasn’t the only one that had issues. The woman became very defensive, as if the flowers were a part of her soul and I was personally attacking it. I asked to speak to a manager, she replies “I’m the owner”. We continued to argue for the next couple minutes, when I threatened to stop payment on my CC. She said “alright, I’m going to refund you the money, but you’re NEVER allowed to step into my store again”. And hung up on me.
Alright bitch, I got you.
So I spend the next few hours on the phone with NF, bouncing all over the country from call center to call center moving one rung up the ladder of their corporate structure at a time. Until I get about 4 steps from the top, someone gives me a boost, and I got the actual number of the CEO of NF. I spend about 20 minutes on hold after speaking to the secretary and briefly explaining my situation.
I tell the CEO what happens, and he couldn’t have been nicer. I told him, I had ordered from different NF stores from many different states in the past, and was generally satisfied, and I felt like LF in no way represents the NF brand, and they should lose their affiliation. He did not immediately respond to that request, but said he would investigate the situation, and in the meantime send me flowers from a different florist locally within the NF brand. I received those flowers from a florist an hour away, within 2 hours, and they looked amazing. Better than I could have asked for. About 2 weeks later, I received a letter in the mail (I didn’t go into all this detail in my original comment, but the result is the same) and the letter apologized profusely, and thanked me for bringing this to their attention. Apparently, they keep tapes of the calls made to the florists, they reviewed the tapes and agreed, LF did not represent how NF wants to treat its customers, and LF will no longer be a part of the NF brand. He gave me a $250 gift card to any NF store.
Within 2 years, LF closed because it couldn’t support being an independent florist in this suburb when there was already another florist under the NF brand.
So, sure lady, I won’t step foot in your store again. But neither will anyone else.
“They mass-slaughter this organism called “flowers” and give the bound mass of corpses to their desired mate as a courting ritual, possibly as proof of ability. Truly fascinating.“
An excerpt from the widely acclaimed ‘A Comprehensive Study of the Complex Social Dynamics of Humans’, Section 347-D3, ‘Ritual Wooing’
“- Amongst the many diverse cultures of the human hive, a fairly prominent behavior becomes apparent to the observer, unique for the fact that it seems instinctual despite geographic location. This contrasts with much of the operant conditioning observed through their constructed hives and cultural rituals.
As previously indicated, nearly all human colonies display dominion over the surrounding inorganic and organic structure, perhaps as an exercise to constantly re-establish themselves as the apex species on their planet (Though their subservience to particular grain bearing flora and vegetative growths is well documented, see section 235-A6 ‘Human Propagation of Flora and Fauna, the Mass Human Effort known as ‘Agriculture’)
This behavior is displayed further during social rituals to establish further emotional and cognitive bond amongst colony members. The individual human gathers certain flower bearing growths from their surroundings -either from gathering them from the soil themselves, or obtaining them from the local distributor in exchange for currency- and gifts the slowly dying biomass to other individuals for ritualistic purposes.
As practice, the act has much significance socially, ranging from welcoming colony mates who have established familial dens in the dwelling space next to them (though apartment plants seem to be mostly living growths in containers, a behavior that may be linked to their need to display dominion of their environ. See Section 654-H7 ‘Non Species Specific Social Interactions’) yet is diverse enough to extend to gifts toward the individual humans birther on the celebration day of birthers, and to attract both reproductive and nonreproductive mates.
Such an activity is distinctive to humans, and can be attributed to their constant need for external stimulus. The growths serve a multifaceted purpose by providing olfactory, visual, and textural stimuli in a non harmful way, creating a sort of positive reinforcement that is associated with the individual who gave them. This, of course, leads to an enhanced emotional and mental cognitive state between individuals in further social interaction.
(The absence of gustatory stimuli by such growths is often noted, and as such, humans have taken to presenting gifts of carbohydrate rich foodstuff to accommodate the lack of presence in the flora.)
Many actions are taken to ensure the longest amount of positive stimulus is received from the cut growths. Many humans receiving will create a solution of hydro-nutrient feed to extend the life of the growth, and place the container and the flora somewhere in their dwelling or productivity space. Despite humans understanding that the growths would have a longer effect if they were not cut from their subterranean feed systems, it is still most common to give the dying stalks of flora instead of a live organism. Here in lies yet another idiosyncrasy of the species, a instinctual effort dominating an intellectual knowledge, once again exposing their relatively new evolution into sentient beings.-’
@space-australians you might like this
