What I'd Say to the Martians

T
hings tend to even out. Religion, some people say, has caused wars and fighting. Yes, but it’s also boring to sit through a church service, so it evens out. One moment you’re depressed because your doctor tells you that you have alcoholism. But then you cheer up when you go home and find a hidden bottle of vodka you had forgotten about.

Things are evening out all the time, if you take time to notice, like I do. Let’s say you want a big cupcake, with lots of icing, so you go buy one and eat it. But then you realize, I don’t have the cupcake anymore. Or maybe you take a bite of salsa that’s labeled
HOT
, and it doesn’t seem that hot, but then about a second later it seems
really
hot.

You might hear that some guy you know is having a party, so you call him up, but he says there’s no party. But then you call back, using a different voice, and suddenly there is a party.

One day you ask people to take a look at a skin rash you have. Then a few days later you’re looking at
their
rashes. You send someone a death threat and then, mysteriously, the police come to your house and threaten
you.

Maybe you find a nice flat pebble on a riverbank, and when you pick it up and throw it, it skips across the water several times. But then the next pebble you can’t even pry loose because, what is this, glue mud? You notice an ant drifting away on a leaf in the water. Then you look up to see your aunt, drifting away in a rowboat.

Eventually, I believe, everything evens out. Long ago an asteroid hit our planet and killed our dinosaurs. But in the future, maybe we’ll go to another planet and kill their dinosaurs.

Even in the afterlife things probably even out, although I can’t imagine how.

Still don’t believe that things even out? Try this simple test: Flip a coin, over and over again, calling out “Heads!” or “Tails!” after each flip. Half the time people will ask you to please stop.

Once you realize that things even out, it’s like a light being turned on in your head, then turning off, then being turned to “dim.”

Probably the perfect example of things evening out happened to me just last month. I was walking to the post office to mail a death threat. It was a beautiful day. I was happily singing away in my super-loud singing voice. I didn’t step on any chewing gum, like I usually do, and when I threw my gum down, it didn’t stick to my fingertips. As I rounded the corner there was a bum begging for change. I was feeling pretty good, so I gave him a five-dollar bill. At first I tried to make him do a little dance for the five dollars, but he wouldn’t do it, so I gave him the five dollars anyway.

Not long after that I was reading the paper, and there was a picture of the bum. He had won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry! He had a little bigger nose and straighter teeth, but I’m pretty sure it was him. So, my five dollars had made him change his ways and become a chemistry guy.

A few days later I was walking by the corner again, and there was the bum, back begging. So, things had evened out. He had gotten the Nobel Prize, but now he was a bum again. I asked him for the five dollars back, but he started saying weird stuff that I guess was chemistry formulas or something.

I told my friend Don the story, but he said it wasn’t an example of things evening out so much as just a stupid story. That’s interesting, Don, because you saying that evens out what I said to your mother that time.

I have a lot of stories about things evening out, but I think the one about the Nobel Prize–winning bum is the best. I’d say it would take about three of my other stories to even out that one.

 

Dear Sir:

A few days ago, you phoned us about the job you applied for with our company, and we told you that you did not get the job. However, we are now writing to inform you that you did not get the job. We wanted to make sure you understood that.

Sincerely,
Personnel Department

 

 

Dear Sir:

Congratulations! You got the job! That is probably what you were hoping this letter would say. But it doesn’t, because you didn’t.

Sincerely, Personnel Department

 

 

Dear Sir:

You recently applied for a position with us, but you did not get it, as we have informed you by phone and by mail. However, we have not heard back from you that you completely understand that you failed to get the job. Please call or write and let us know that you realize that you are not employed by us in any way, and never will be.

Sincerely,
Personnel Department

 

 

Dear Sir:

Please be advised that the person we hired instead of you has been promoted to department manager, and he has asked us to inform you that, should a position open up, he would not hire you.

Sincerely,
Personnel Department

 

 

Dear Sir:

Would you consider taking a job for less pay than we originally discussed, even though we would never offer you such a job?

Sincerely,
Personnel Department

 

 

Dear Sir:

If it is any consolation, we feel that if we had hired you, by now we would have been forced to let you go.

Sincerely,
Personnel Department

 

 

Dear Sir:

We are writing to find out what kind of carpeting and curtains you want in your new office…. Wait, we made a mistake. You’re the wrong person. Oh well, we’re going to go ahead and send this letter to you anyway.

Sincerely,
Personnel Department

 

 

Dear Sir:

Could you report for work first thing Monday morning, if you had a job? Just curious.

Sincerely,
Personnel Department

 

 

Dear Sir:

While updating our file of job applications, yours was folded into a paper airplane and was accidentally flown out the window. Would you mind filling out the enclosed application and mailing it back to us in the shape of an airplane?

Sincerely,
Personnel Department

 

 

Dear Sir:

As you may have read in the newspaper, our company has been crippled by a union strike, and we have had to call in outside, freelance help, for which we are paying many times the normal salary. We just thought you should know that.

Sincerely,
Personnel Department

 

 

Dear Sir:

It has come to our attention that an employee in our department has been sending you unauthorized and inappropriate letters. We have told him not only that he is fired, but that we are hiring you in his place. He left here in an uproar, swearing that he was “going to find [you] and crush [your] head like a walnut.” (Some of us think he said “like a peanut,” but most think he said “walnut.”) If he shows up at your apartment, please explain to him that we were just kidding; we would never hire you.

Sincerely,
Personnel Department