We all have our desires to escape the trappings of this world and to exist in a life which is as close as possible to the exact opposite of the one we are currently residing in. I pondered many a sleepless night over how I might go about this exodus, and I arrived at a conclusion which I think is most logical.

I shall be abducted by aliens.

The process has been decided. Now all that is left is for me to go through with the act and complete my resignation for the planet earth.

First, I must ensure that those around me will not go through any great emotional pain when they discover that I am no longer here. I assume I can overcome this with a simple trick I have learned from watching many episodes of Saved By the Bell during my impressionable pre-teen years--I will construct a shockingly life-like paier-mâché replica of myself and tuck it under the covers of my bed. If I have enough time, I might even make an elaborate tape-recorded snore, a la Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

My sorrowful departure thus avoided, I will then have to actually be abducted by said aliens. This should not be too great a problem. I live in the South and therefore am surrounded my many cows and farmers, which are two of any extraterrestrial's top ten choices of lifeforms to terrorize. I'll go out to a cow pasture and stare at the skies, for--oh--about 15 minutes. This should give the aliens adequate time to prepare the instruments which they will be intending to use to perform various experiments upon me.

Of course, I would never show up at a get-together empty-handed. I will have to remember to bake some brownies, preferably those with walnuts in them, before I embark upon my journey to the cow pasture, in order to appease the astral palates of my captors comme saviors, thereby assuring myself a position of honor, friendship, and-- most appreciable to me--non-experimental status on their illustrious spaceship.

What a Marvelous time we will have! I and my strange new acquaintances will tour the galaxy by means of hyper-stellar space travel, stopping at the trendy little planets along the way to get a taste of their culture, and hovering over the boringly mundane pieces of orbital rock, abducting the clueless individuals imprisoned there, and performing horrifically embarrassing and delightfully unnecessary experiments upon them! Yes, before you all bombard me with requests, I will get this on videotape and sell it at a cheap price.

But, like all great adventures, this fun will soon end, and I will have to return home to my dreary little life on this dreary little planet. They'll drop me off at my house (for they know I do not live in the cow pasture--by this time I have regailed them with my witty and brilliant plan to attract their attention and we have all laughed about it and made inside jokes relating to it) and I will return to my bed, currently occupied by the pseudo-Holly. Disposing of her by means of our industrial strength paper-shredder, I will climb into my empty bed and look at the dark ceiling, allowing my thoughts to drift over me in a tide of uncertainty. I will have kept nothing with me to prove the existence of my adventure. Doubtful of the whole thing, I will turn over and fall asleep, lapsing into a dreamy rerun of the night's events.