Aliens invaded Earth, and they were so fucking rich. It wasn’t exactly an invasion, either. They just kind of showed up and started spending money. Their spaceships weren’t all that special. They actually seemed a lot like ours—they had rockets and thrusters and things. No one thought the aliens had especially advanced technology. And they certainly weren’t hyper-intelligent; they were terrible drivers. They had trouble learning our languages, just as we had trouble learning theirs. They thought our math was more advanced. I even tutored one of them on high school algebra for a few weeks. They loved to learn about our variables. They’d also never seen rubber before and were obsessed with anything that bounced. Every year a few of them would get run over chasing a ball into the street, like little children. It was kind of pathetic.
      But they were so damn rich, man. I don’t know where they got all that money. They brought it with them; they definitely didn’t earn it. And we were all struggling and so desperately poor back then that we were happy to sell them anything they wanted. The aliens loved our yard sales. They were so jazzed over your junk and made you feel like a king. My neighbor sold them a little box of old keys and they held it above their heads and paraded around his yard like it was the Stanley Cup.
      One Saturday I was working on my motorcycle in the garage when a car of them drove past and stopped up the street.
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