On Enasni, when delivered a telegram, it is considered exceptionally rude not to tip the messenger. So, I placed both my hands firmly on his shoulders and gave a good push. He rocked backward, almost falling over, and I could tell by his wide smile that he was pleased.

News of my pending departure swept through the village where I was staying. The town elders informed me that a feast was to be held in my honor the following day.

Having spent the night packing, I arose the following morning to find the air permeated with the aroma of Cassowary roasting on open spits in preparation for the feast. At the designated hour, I arrived at the central plaza to find it filled with festive happy faces both familiar and new.

Here again was the little green man, still carrying his confusing charts. Professor Aleks, always the conversationalist (and a bit of a drinker), was insistent that I answer a burning question before I departed. As I did not know the answer he kept asking it in several different ways, and would not change the subject until I promised to answer an entirely different question; such is his way.

Just before we began the ceremonial licking of the frogs, I was handed a letter sent by the former members of my team who had vanished in the mists of Mount z. It seems they left Enasni with their new spouses and are all now living in a suburb approximately 22 miles outside of Denver in new homes with attached garages, 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, and swimming pools. To assist their Ensani loved ones adjust to life on Earth, they have turned the swimming pools into classical Enasni tickle pits, which is sure to increase the value of their homes.

So we ate, and tickled, and chased frogs long into the night, and as the bell in the clock tower in the plaza struck 2:47:06, I knew it was time for me to go. Goodbye Ensani and thanks for all the fish.

I stood up from my chair, spilling my chi tea, and made my way through the room that, by now, after weeks on the planet, was so strewn with my belongings that it looked like a scatter diagram where nothing had any correlation.

I opened the door to find a representative of the Enasni Intergalactic Telegraph Office (ITO). Enasni law prohibits direct communication between planets; consequently, the ITO does a thriving business.

I must say, however, that these telegraph communications are not without their challenges. First, Enasni law requires that the sender (in my case folks back on Earth) must translate the message into Enasni before transmitting. This poses a challenge because the Enasni language is difficult and because only 7 people on Earth speak it.

Once received on Enasni, the telegram is sent to the Enasni government sensors that look for and remove any words or phases considered offensive. Examples of offending text include, but are not limited to:

Corn (cob, not cream style)
Terrarium
Flute
Bette Midler
Any words containing more than four letters.

Once potentially offending words are removed the telegraph must be re-translated back into English by a designated representative of the ITO. On Enasni there are 4 English speakers, who, as best I can tell, spend most of their days fishing. I have attempted to determine if there is a correlation between the hours they spend fishing, the number of days they work, and the volume of telegraphs I receive. They are a very independent group, their productivity seems variable, and I, after all, am dependent upon them.

But I digress…

With the telegraph in my hand, I read:

URGE STOP MUST COME HOME BABY STOP WIFE STOP EAT NEED STOP MILK STOP

I ponder the meaning of this for a moment. Does it mean:

Urgent, my wife has had a baby, but the baby has stopped eating?

Or, does it mean my wife is eating babies and won’t stop.

Or, perhaps it means, “come home baby, I want to go out to dinner, and remember to stop and pick up some milk on the way?”

Whatever the meaning, it appears I need to prepare to leave Enasni.

After a night of drinking followed by dreams about multi-headed fish getting married to natives in the mists of mount Z (the groom was wearing a tuxedo with two tails), I awoke feeling less than splendid. I stepped outside into the bright morning light of the Enasni suns to retrieve the morning paper.

I sat down with the paper and my morning cup of Chi tea. The Enasnians are fond of Chi tea; they will drink cup after cup. Based upon tradition each cup must be placed in a different corner of the room and consumed one cup at a time, working one’s way in a counter clockwise direction. This gets a bit confusing because the clocks on Enasni keep time in different directions depending on what hemisphere one is in. In any case, this charming custom is referred to as Chi-squared.

According to the paper, one of the stars in a neighboring galaxy turned into a super NOVA. ANOVA, according to the paper, has so many attributes I couldn’t count the numbers. In any case, before I could finish the article, there was a knock at the door.