NEW YORK, NY – Suddenly materializing over the 15 largest cities of the world last month, the armada of alien spacecraft caught everyone’s attention yet had remained ominously silent. That is, until this last Monday, when the people of Earth were startled with a message promising a Utopian future for all; but not without a caveat.
“We ask you to show us your progression as a species, so that we may bestow upon you the secrets of millions of years of sentient development,” relayed a message broadcasted from every audio device simultaneously, around the world, and in all local languages. ”Impress us with your advancement as a civilization in the fields of moral philosophy, mathematics, science, and societal governance!”
Governments and faith institutions representing the near seven billion people of Earth welcomed the possibility of alien technology and science that would end war, disease, and hunger.
But it was the condition under which this gift would be provided that began to worry many. Just 24 hours after their announcement, the alien visitors randomly selected Stephen Reynolds, a Long Island native and 38-year old bank assistant manager, to stand as an example of just how far human society has advanced.
An unnamed source from within the US State Department who helped coordinate Reynold’s participation has revealed that the aliens would administer a series of assessment tests. While moral philosophy, science, and societal governance are not Reynold’s strongest subjects, the biggest area of interest for the interstellar visitors is humanity’s (and Reynold’s) ability to understand and converse in the one true universal language, that of mathematics.
Rumors are surfacing that the one deemed by many to be the salvation of mankind might not be up to the task. Unfortunately for humanity, Reynolds never expected to have much use for mathematics as an adult and had such little regard for its fundamental value that he dumped any basic understanding of algebra, trigonometry, as well as single semester of calculus, from his memory years ago.
Reynolds is reported to have replaced this crucial knowledge with information such as the navigation within social hierarchies, culturally relevant trivia, work-related minutiae, and the names, proclivities, and interests of his friends and family.
Adding to the world’s anxiety yesterday, Reynold’s former high school math teacher Marcos Hernandez brought forward troubling evidence that the deal offered by the otherworldy visitors may not turn out well for us.
While Hernandez’ revelations about his former student’s average grades have caused some to worry, the now retired educator is more concerned about an exchange he claims to have had with Reynolds over 20 years ago.
“I remember him stomping out after a trig final, obviously upset,” Hernandez recounts. “When I confronted him, I remember him saying ’dude, there’s no point to this. When am I ever going to need this stuff ever again?’. Yes, that was the phrase I believe he used.”
“‘When will I ever need this stuff again’, indeed,” Hernandez said. “Those are words that I knew would eventually come back to haunt me.”
And yet yesterday, with a nervous world watching, Reynolds entered the giant alien space ship that hovered over Central Park in New York City. And just as Hernandez predicted, early reports of his performance have not been promising.
His difficulty in laying out the Pythagorean identity for a right triangle was reported to have drawn gasps from the alien inquisitor’s breathing holes. They were further puzzled with his limited familiarity with a simple Cartesian coordinate system.
Desperately looking to give him a mulligan, and suspecting that Reynolds was just nervous, they asked him for a simple explanation as to how the Poincaré conjecture might characterize the shape of the universe, something any space-faring species should be intimately familiar with. Reynolds could only answer that he didn’t speak much French, resulting in the aliens throwing up all three of their arms in exasperation.
Reynolds thinks the alien gift is very pretty, keeps getting warmer
Our alien visitors were confused as to how we as a species, so naive and so evidently stupid, could have advanced so far; harnessing the energy of the atomic nucleus, balancing the immense power and destructive forces at our disposal, and well on its way to transitioning into a fully functioning Type I civilization. They openly questioned whether we should be allowed to even advance any further. A crucial point lost on Reynolds as he was trying to figure out how their space pencil worked.
Reynolds not only failed to win Earth’s entry into the confederation of advanced alien beings that live in peace and harmony in a trans-galactic empire, his pathetic exchange with alien scientists may very well have doomed to extinction the entire human race, if not all life on this planet.
Unless of course, within the next 24 hours he can solve for a simple regression series linked to a countdown timer connected to a red pulsating sphere provided to him before the alien beings dropped him off and left Earth.
“That sure is a pretty red ball they gave me,” Reynolds told reporters. “I wonder what it does? It’s kind of warm. . .getting hotter I think.”
JB Goodbody frequently has thoughts in his head that makes him smile. Were they made public at the moment they poofed into existence, without some form of structured outlet such as satire, these thoughts would cause significant distress among his friends, family and coworkers. This is why he is here. 
