Five thousand years into the future, an intelligent extra-terrestrial species called The Collective uncovered a solitary data storage chip amongst the rubble once known as Earth and took it back to their ship for examination.
Though initially puzzled by the tiny archaic construction, they learned what it (a usb) was through their unified symbiotic brain and, afterwards, went to retrieve the necessary device (once called a “laptop” by their elders) to help them extract its contents.
And after a good, hearty laugh (also symbiotic) at the humans adorable little attempt at technology, they began to view the data that was on the chip.
Apparently, someone had saved a number of “satirical” articles about a man named Barack Obama (as well as a few odd videos of small animals shooting lazers out of their eyes and dancing on the screen).
With their curiosities piqued, and their symbiotic brain failing to produce a clear definition of abstract concepts, they took a lap around the sun and reappeared back on Earth in the year 2013 AD to find out more about this “satire” (but mainly because they wanted to see some dancing cats).
And after skipping to page 20 (because its their favorite number) in the Google search results for “satire”, they found Iron E-News.
Below is an excerpt from that odd encounter:
“So satire is a love letter to a really famous person?” inquired The Collective (from here on out to be referred to as TC).
“No, no,” I answered, with only a hint of amazement. “Satire is more like a sword–aimed at those on the wrong end of common sense, logic, etc.”
“So this man, Barack, is the one always holding the sword, yes? He must have been a wonderful swordsman! I’m surprised that wasn’t mentioned in any of the articles.”
“Hm,” I responded unconsciously, all the while trying to absorb the irony of their ability to travel in time and their inability to grasp something I learned in Ms. Hoffman’s 9th grade English class. “No, you misunderstood–I was speaking figuratively. Satire is not a real sword, I was merely comparing it to one.”
“Oh, yes. Hahaha,” they laughed as one. “Figuratively, of course. Hahahahahahahahaha. We love ‘figuratively’. What is that again?”
“Okay, I can see we’re not getting anywhere. How about I show you those cats you wanted to see?”