Another small invasion snippet

“Frankel, Loewry, and Goldberg. How may I help you?” The young woman’s voice was steady but her eyes reflected shock at seeing a dog faced alien against a strange background.

“Hello. My name is Blue, the same as your color. Be aware when you reply the response will be what you humans call laggy. We are out by your moon and it takes a few seconds for the signal to make the round trip. I am second in charge of this vessel and wish to speak to a senior partner of your firm about representing the crew of our ship to land and be granted favorable immigration status in the United States of America.” He had that written out and read it carefully.

“Mr. Loewry is on call right now,” the receptionist said. “I will request he speak with you.”

“Mr. L, I have a new client call on line 3,” Cheryl said. “I think you should replay my video before answering the, uh, gentleman.”

Cheryl watched Loewry replay the call and his face turned red as he got angry.

“Cheryl, we pay you to screen calls precisely because we don’t wish to speak to every nut case and fraudster who can look up our contact info. Those supposed aliens were in the news about a month ago. If they were real, they’d be holding news conferences on the Whitehouse lawn by now. They thoroughly discredited the crank astronomer who started this. For crying out loud, they are selling rubber masks of the ‘aliens’ already. The kids will be wearing them for Halloween. The stories all over the internet have them landing in Idaho to steal potatoes, taking people for joy rides and other utter foolishness. Just hang up on him. Don’t waste another word. And don’t bother me with other aliens of any flavor,” Loewry instructed her.

Blue couldn’t hear Loewry’s response. Cheryl simply looked distressed and the screen went blank.

“Communications failed?” Blue asked.

“Nahhh, she hung up on you,” Jed said. “Her boss probably made her.”

“Hung up is terminated?” Blue asked.

“Yeah, that’s an old expression from when the handset for a voice only phone actually terminated the call by being replaced on the instrument.”

“What shall I do?” Blue wondered.

“Life is too short to try to fix stupid,” Jed advised him. “There’s too much of it in the world. That’s why I gave you four firms to call. I thought one or more might turn the work down.”

“What is the word for that particular kind of bad behavior? Blue asked. “She did not treat me correctly. Am I wrong?”

“No, she was what we call rude. Don’t hold it against her. I’m sure she wouldn’t have done that on her own authority. Her boss undoubtedly ordered it.”