before going to the movies last saturday i took the car in for service. so there i was minding my own business reading the new yorker and a couple of essays by august kleinzahler and trying to drown out the noise of cnn headline news which is a half hour broadcast on continuous loop.

i had a couple of hrs at least to kill so i did my level best. i don't have an iPod, cuz i like ambient noise, but an iPod sure would've helped. but then i hear the words 'ufo' and 'o'hare' from the anchor and i couldn't stop myself from looking at the screen and being drawn to this story about an alleged ufo hovering over a terminal at o'hare airport for several minutes before shooting straight into the sky. several airport employees swear to it. tho the guy 'jack' interviewed by cnn with his face hidden cuz he is an airline mechanic for i think united said that he does think it was from another world. but, he added, what i can't get over is why, if it was an alien spacecraft, the aliens would travel millions of lightyears only to hover over o'hare.

well, there's a pop mythos if there ever was one. i can imagine the crew of the ship looking out over the chaos of a contemporary u.s. airport and say, nope, too far gone. let's blow this banana stand! and leaving us humans to rot away without concrete evidence of extraterrestrial life.

or perhaps the e/ts have a sense of humor, giving us just the barest glimpse of life on other planets before saying psyche! and whisking off only to leave those few poor souls who witnessed the miracle of an alien presence scratching their heads while facing a skeptical population like me who listened to their story with interest then bent his head back down to his book.