Buttheads from Outer Space

by Jerry Mahoney

  “Ugh!” I groaned.

  “Gnarly!” IAmAWeenieBurger said. “What was that?”

  I stepped out of the puddle, wondering if I’d ever be able to get my sneakers clean or if I’d have to burn them. “It sounded like a sneeze.”

  The aliens both gasped, then applauded happily. “We have always wanted to sneeze!”

  “You’ve never sneezed?”

  “No. We have no germs on our planet. There’s nothing to make us sick7.”

  “Wow,” I said. “That must be cool. But wait, it couldn’t be a sneeze. Sneezes come from your nose, and that came from his feet.”

  “But that’s where our noses are!” IAmAWeenieBurger explained. “Look!”

  “What?” I bent down, and sure enough, the aliens’ big toes each had two nostrils in them. “That’s amazing! And weird.”

  “It makes sense to have your smelling organ as far away from your butt as you can get it, doesn’t it?”

  I got down on the floor and looked right into Doodoofartmama’s left toe-nose. They were just like human nostrils, with tiny hairs inside and even a couple of boogers clinging to the walls. As I was checking them out, the nostrils began to wiggle and take in air. “What’s it doing now?” I asked.

  “Uhh-SHOOZ!”

  A giant snot rocket shot out of Doodoofartmama’s toes, right at my face. It was all over me, dripping down onto my shirt. It smelled, tasted, and felt absolutely disgusting.

  “FRRT?” Doodoofartmama said.

  “Is he apologizing?” I asked, as I tried to pick his mucus out of my hair.

  “No, he’s asking if we can play some more games while you clean it up.”

  7 Wanna read our sickest blog ever? See page 255.

  CHAPTER 7

  Don’t ever have a sleepover8 with an alien.

  It might sound cool to observe an extraterrestrial’s sleep habits, but I’ll spare you the trouble because I’ve done it myself, and it was pretty much the worst six and a half hours of my life. For one thing, the buttheads glowed in the dark. Brightly. Lying next to IAmAWeenieBurger and Doodoofartmama was like having a spotlight shone directly on me all night long. It would’ve been easier to fall asleep while listening to Katy Perry belting out “Firework” in Madison Square Garden, only that might actually have been quieter. That’s because aliens also hum in their sleep. Just a soft, constant drone all night long. The humming wasn’t that bad, honestly, except that at random intervals, it suddenly turned into an unbearable, ear-piercing screech, like the high note in “Firework.” I’m not saying I didn’t fall asleep. Over the course of the night, I probably fell asleep five hundred times, but only for three to twelve seconds each time.

  While the buttheads glowed, their skin became see-through, and I could look at all the organs inside their bodies, which was even creepier than it sounds. They had four lungs, six hearts—which, unlike ours, were actually heart-shaped—and what appeared to be a merry-go-round circling their stomach. It actually had little horse-shaped objects that moved up and down as they went around. I’m sure it served some vital bodily function for their species, but I kept expecting one of their kidneys to hop on for a ride.

  Before I knew it, it was 6:59, and I had less than one minute to wake up. We have a rule in our house that I need to be out of bed at 7:00 a.m. sharp. It has nothing to do with how long it takes me to get ready for school. It’s just that my mom read on a website that it’s important to spend at least forty minutes of quality time with your children every morning, and she and my dad leave at 7:40 to go to work.

  I’m not allowed to set an alarm, either, because my dad saw a talk show hosted by a doctor who said the first thing you hear in the morning sets the tone for your entire day. Since alarm clocks make awful sounds, if that’s what wakes you up, you’ll have an awful day. Like if your alarm clock buzzes, I guess the idea is that you could spend all day swatting at bees. Of course, I find that unlikely, but who am I to argue with a TV doctor/talk show host?

  So, no alarms. I just have to wake up at 7:00 a.m., or else. The “or else” is a special kind of torture I wouldn’t wish on any twelve-year-old on Earth. I’m so afraid of it that I automatically wake up between 6:54 and 6:57 every day. Somehow, my mind just senses the imminent doom and sends a message for me to get out of bed, pronto.

  Except today. My restless night threw everything off, and now it was 6:59. There was no time to flee. I had to move fast. “You guys!” I said, nudging the buttheads awake. “Hide!”

  “Uhhrrrrrgggrr!” IAmAWeenieBurger muttered, half awake. “Wanna sleep more . . .”

  “Hurry!” I tossed him off the bed. “They’re coming!” I could hear my parents’ footsteps on the stairs. I pushed the aliens with all my might under my bed. This was what I always did with stuff I didn’t want my parents to see. I just shoved it under my bed and let my comforter hang down low to block it. Unfortunately, today was the day my brilliant plan finally imploded before my eyes. There was too much junk under my bed for the buttheads to fit there.

  “Ow! Ow!” IAmAWeenieBurger whimpered as I pushed him against the bed frame.

  “Hey, Don, do you know what time it is?” my mom said from the hallway, as she reached the top of the staircase. Oh no. It was starting.

  “I sure do, Debbie!” my dad responded happily.

  I grabbed IAmAWeenieBurger by the shoulders, pleading. “I need you to go number four!”

  “If you say so . . .” he replied, and he and Dood oofartmama dissolved instantly into burnt sienna– hued goo. They slithered in among the other stuff under my bed, and I pulled the comforter down so my parents couldn’t see them. I then leapt back into bed, just as my parents danced in from the hallway with giant Mickey Mouse smiles on their faces.

  “It’s wakey wakey time!” they sang together in hideous harmony.

  Then, they started dancing and shaking their jazz hands. It was a song they made up called “The Wakey Wakey Song,” and it was every nightmare I’ve ever had rolled into one.

  “Goodness sakey!” my mom sang.

  “Flip some pancakeys!” harmonized my dad.

  “Say bye-bye bed and hello eggs and bakey!”

  This was my punishment for not getting out of bed faster. An overly rehearsed a cappella wake-up song, which my mom and dad had routinely performed for me every day of my life from birth until I begged them to stop, around age five. Since then, they’ve only done it when I overslept, which is why I never oversleep.

  Usually.

  “Wakey wakey! Wakey wakey!” They leapt up on my bed and started tap-dancing on my mattress.

  “It’s OK,” I assured them. “I’m awake.” I had to stop them before my dad got to his rap solo.

  “Oh, all right, sleepyhead!” my mom said, climbing down. My parents high-fived, then tap-danced back to my doorway.

  I’ve been emailing that talk show doctor about whether it’s healthy for a twelve-year-old boy to wake up to his parents’ off-key singing, but so far, he hasn’t responded.

  “Have a great day, honey,” my mom said.

  “Yeah, sport,” added my dad, before they both shuffled back downstairs. “Come down when you’re dressed. I’m making waffles!”

  It was hard to stay annoyed when they meant so well.

  Hard as it was, though, I was still able to do it.

  By the time I got downstairs, Lloyd was there, and he had already eaten most of the waffles.

  “Come on!” my dad was shouting. “Do it! Do it!”

  My mom rolled her eyes. “Oh, Don, really!”

  “Here you go!” Lloyd called, and then he flung a bite of waffle across the room.

  My dad practically threw his back out diving for it, but sure enough, he caught it with his front teeth, just like all that broccoli from last night. “Bam!” he cheered. Then he fell over trying to regain his balance and nearly wiped out half the breakfast table with him. Still, his enthusiasm was undimmed. “This needs to be an Olympic event!”

  “You’d
get the gold, Don,” Lloyd assured him.

  “One more!” my dad said, brushing himself off. “With my eyes closed!”

  “Absolutely not,” my mom said, stepping between them. “You can train for the waffle Olympics in somebody else’s kitchen. Have a seat, Josh.”

  My mom snagged the last waffle for me and slid the syrup next to my plate. “How late were you up last night?” she asked.

  “Well—” I started to say.

  “Not too late, I’m sure,” Lloyd interrupted.

  “Josh is enjoying his iPhone responsibly. Right, Josh?”

  “Of course, Mom.”

  “I knew you would,” she said, bending down and reaching her arms around me for a hug.

  From across the room, my mom’s phone buzzed. “I wonder who’s emailing me,” she said.

  My dad took his plate to the sink, and Lloyd whispered to me privately, “How did it go last night?”

  “Ugh, I’ll tell you later.”

  My mom let out an awful-sounding screech. “Nine hundred dollars!” She tossed down her iPhone.

  “Is that the credit card bill?” my dad asked.

  “It’s the app store bill!” my mom said.

  “The wha . . . ?”

  “Josh, did you buy nine thousand virtual tickets in a game called Ultimate . . .” She looked at the screen, but she couldn’t bring herself to say the name. “. . . Something, Coaster?”

  I froze. I was totally busted. “Doodoofartmama!” I shouted. As soon as it slipped out of my mouth, I realized I shouldn’t have said that.

  “AAAAAAH!” my mom squealed, as her iPhone fell out of her hands and crashed onto the floor. “Josh!”

  My parents are really strict about cursing.9 They don’t want me to say curses, write curses, or even think curses. I would be grounded for a week if I ever said the “s” word (“stupid”) or, even worse, the “sh” word (“shut up”). When my dad gets really mad, he yells out “Garbage!” That’s the worst word he ever says. One time he got mad while taking out the trash and said, “This garbage is garbage!”

  By far, the worst word you can say in my house is definitely the “f” word (“fart”). My mom hates that word. She thinks it’s disgusting, even though at Lloyd’s house, it’s probably the number one thing anyone says. They’re always talking about who farted or whose breath smells like fart or who was born in the fart factory. Even Lloyd’s mom says it at dinnertime: “Come and eat, you little farts!” No wonder my mom doesn’t like her.

  “Josh! How dare you!” my dad said. “Give me your phone, young man!”

  I handed him my phone, cringing as he opened the game, a game I had never actually even played.

  Lloyd stepped in to rescue me. “Mr. and Mrs. McBain, there have been all kinds of bugs with this new operating system.”

  “Stay out of this, Lloyd!” my mom snapped. This was very serious if Lloyd’s power of persuasion wasn’t working.

  As my dad tapped his way around Doodoofartmama’s messed-up theme park, I heard the music for Ultimate PukeCoaster playing, along with the sound of tiny avatars tossing their cookies. “Blecccch!” “A-hoooolph!”

  “You spent nine hundred dollars on this?” my dad shouted.

  I didn’t know what to say. “I’m . . . sorry? I promise. It won’t happen again!”

  “You’re right it won’t,” my dad said, “because you’re not getting this phone back. Not for a month!”

  “But, Dad!”

  “C’mon, Debbie. We need to leave for work.”

  As my mom and dad stormed out of the kitchen, I noticed it was only 7:30. “What about quality time?” I asked.

  “I’d rather be at work!” my mom shouted.

  Every day, my parents made me give them an official Josh Goodbye Hug as they walked out the door. Sometimes I had to pry them off me to get them to leave. Today, though, they just grabbed their coats and pushed past me.

  “Excuse me!” my mom said, nudging me aside with her hip.

  “Mom . . . ?” I spread my arms out wide for a hug, but by that point, she was halfway down the porch steps.

  “We wanted to do something nice for you,” she sniffed. “And you took advantage of it!” She looked like she might cry.

  I turned toward my dad as he followed her, but he didn’t even look at me. He stomped through the doorway, then he stopped himself, as if he’d just remembered something. He doubled back into the kitchen, then came out a moment later tearing up a piece of paper.

  “You don’t deserve a lunch note today!” he hissed, tossing the ripped-up shreds on the floor.

  I’d never seen my parents so angry. I couldn’t let them leave like this. This required desperate measures. “I love you!” I called after them. I knew that was the bait they couldn’t resist. They’d never not said it back to me.

  My dad turned around, and I thought for sure he was going to say it. I could tell from his face, though, that he was in no mood to make peace. “Then you shouldn’t have done such . . . such . . .” I could see him debating whether or not to use the word. “Such . . . garbage!”

  He said it.

  Dad climbed into the car and slammed his door, then the Mini Cooper peeled out of our driveway.

  I bent down and looked at the lunch note my dad had destroyed. I could tell by reassembling the pieces what it was supposed to say. “Q: Why is your lunch like your iPhone? Because it’s loaded with apps!” Next to the word “apps,” they’d drawn some apple slices.

  It was terrible as always, but I felt a little sad to see it destroyed by someone other than me. I felt like a bad son—worse, a bad human being.

  And it was all the fault of those two slimy space jerks.10

  8 See page 257 for our blog on sleep, the easiest thing humans do all day.

  9 You can read our blog about curses on page 259. (Just please don’t show it to Josh’s parents!)

  10 Page 261 has our blog on fights, something Lloyd and I never, ever do. Lloyd thinks it’s our best post, but I say he’s wrong, and if he disagrees, he’s a dopey weasel booger muncher.

  CHAPTER 8

  “I’ve had it!” I shouted when I rejoined Lloyd in the kitchen. “I’m going to kick their butts!”

  “Josh,” Lloyd replied. I thought he was going to warn me against starting an interplanetary war, but instead, he said, “Remember where their butts are. We both know you can’t kick that high.”

  “I have to do something,” I wailed. “My parents hate me!”

  “No they don’t. They’re just filled with rage for right now. Rage fades, trust me.”

  That was when we heard the buttheads coming downstairs. They were speaking in their native tongue, so loud that their farts nearly shook the walls. Lloyd couldn’t help giggling, which only annoyed me more. “Stop it!” I said. “Farts aren’t always funny!”

  “OK, let me talk to them,” Lloyd said. “You’re too wound up right now.”

  I knew Lloyd was the better talker, so I agreed.

  “Yo there, Earth friends!” IAmAWeenieBurger chimed as he entered the kitchen. From across the room, he spotted my plate on the table. “Ooh, we’ve always wanted to try waffles! Do you mind?”

  “Help yourselves,” Lloyd told them.

  IAmAWeenieBurger picked up my plate and placed it on a chair. “Yummy!” he squealed, then he sat down on top of it. I couldn’t see exactly what his mouth was doing to the waffle, but I heard ravenous slurping sounds. I had never given any thought to how these aliens eat with mouths where their butts should be, but now that I had the answer, I realized it should’ve been kind of obvious. I had to admit it was a tiny bit cool, but mostly it was disgusting.

  As IAmAWeenieBurger went to town on my breakfast, Doodoofartmama began furiously waving his arms. “FRRT! FRRT!” he blared, and with a mighty shove, he pushed his friend off my chair.

  “Whatevs, dude. I’ll share.” IAmAWeenieBurger stood back, then Doodoofartmama sat down on what remained of my waffle. He began slurping even louder.


  It was only then that I realized there wasn’t going to be anything left for me. “Lloyd, that’s my breakfast!” I said.

  Lloyd tapped Doodoofartmama on the shoulder. “Guys, save some for Josh, OK?”

  Doodoofartmama stood up, leaving the shredded remains of my waffle on the chair, drenched in some orange-hued goop that was clearly what buttheads had instead of human spit. “FRRT!” he apologized. His fart sounded sincere, and it had the fresh smell of clean laundry, so I decided not to make a big deal about it. Still, I couldn’t bear to look at what was left of my breakfast, let alone eat it.

  As I struggled to hold back my barf, IAmAWeenie-Burger proceeded to pick up my orange juice. “Yo! Orange juice!” He bent over so he could pour the juice in his mouth.

  I dove for the glass, shouting, “Stoooooppppp!” I couldn’t stand to see my OJ disappear into an alien’s butt-mouth.

  “What? What’s wrong?” IAmAWeenieBurger asked.

  “You’re wrong! Everything about you is wrong!” I shouted.

  IAmAWeenieBurger hung his head in the saddest way. “We have flown twenty-three billion light-years to see you. But maybe you don’t want us here.”

  “Frrt,” Doodoofartmama concurred, sadly.

  “Guys, you are totally welcome on this planet,” Lloyd insisted. “Right, Josh?”

  “No,” I said. “Not until you pay my parents back the nine hundred dollars you spent on iPhone games!”

  From between IAmAWeenieBurger’s legs, I could see his jaw drop. “Doodoofartmama!” he scolded. “I told you that was a lot of Earth money!” Doodoofartmama frowned guiltily, and IAmAWeenieBurger turned back toward me. “I’m very sorry. We don’t have any dollars, but we’ll pay you back with ten billion woofbas.”

  “Whoa!” Lloyd nearly fell over with excitement. “Ten billion? Josh, we’ll be rich!”

  I rolled my eyes. “The app store doesn’t accept woofbas, Lloyd!”

  “Right,” he said. “Okay, Josh. If this is what you want, we’ll kick them out. Thanks for stopping by, buttheads. Don’t let the ozone layer hit you on the way out.”