Every parenting book I’ve read advises you not to compare your kid with other kids. I appreciate this advice, but Sarah and I have decided to ignore it because we want Ben to turn out

JUST LIKE 13 year old Spencer Tweedy.

Spencer Tweedy is son of Jeff Tweedy. Jeff Tweedy, of course, is Jesus. Jeff Tweedy is also the lead singer of Wilco, but that’s just a side project to being Jesus.

Spencer Tweedy has a blog where he tells you how to become a dictator, takes amazing photos, and blogs about Georgian politics. (And that’s Georgia with a capital Post-Sickle.) He also builds websites and writes software. Did I mention that Spencer is 13? When I was 13 I spent my days eating paste and sawing open golf balls.

Sarah and I are convinced Spencer is an alien, but an alien that our son must one day emulate.

Speaking of aliens, I was listening to Ben last night on the baby monitor. He was making his usual baby grunts, farts, and NOM NOM NOM sounds. He was also making a new gurgling noise with his throat, like he was trying to woo insects into his crib. Actually, he sounded just like the Predator. Either that or the Predator was in Ben’s nursery, hovering over our child, alien drool dripping off his fangs and landing with a burning hssssss.

Here. See for yourself. This is me asking Ben what he’s doing. He gurgles back. Just. Like. The Predator.

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Ahhhhh!

Anyway, Ben stayed awake for about an hour: goofing around, being the Predator, and probably eating his hands, something he’s lately become fond of doing. Whenever Ben seems blissed out like this in his own little world Sarah and I always wonder what he’s thinking about. He’s probably not contemplating Faust, but he’s probably doing something more than just thinking about his sphincter.

So I kept listening to him on the monitor, wondering what’s going through his head. But then my mind started to wander and I began to imagine what it would be like to meet aliens. For some reason everything took place on the moon, with astronauts. I imagined U.S. astronauts bouncing around on the moon collecting rocks when all of a sudden a space ship lands and spits out an alien. What would we do? Are astronauts trained for this? Does the NASA manual have a chapter called “How to Say Hi to an Alien?”

I wondered if our astronauts would wave or bow. Or just stand there like a frozen idiot spacesuit man. (Note to self: Next Flaming Lips Album: “Frozen Idiot Spacesuit Man.”) How we first greet an alien could have a lasting impact on our planet – like whether it gets LAZERED out of the sky by an ALIEN PHOTON BEAM – so whether we bow, wave, curtsy, or gyrate is pretty important.

I decided that the astronaut should bow. Bowing seems less threatening than waving, and I think bowing is probably more universally understood. Even if you don’t know what it means, you can just tell it’s probably something nice. Like kittens. Or Barney Frank.

But then I decided it would be better if our ambassador astronaut and the alien played golf, like Alan Shepard in 1971. They would bounce around on the moon together, tee off around 3, and knock a few Titleists out into the black sky. But then I thought, what if our astronaut wasn’t very good at golf and sliced the ball toward the spaceship and broke a window?

Earth’s first encounter with alien life and YOU BROKE THE ALIEN’S WINDOW. No one would ever let you live that done. But you probably wouldn’t have a chance to tell anyone about it because you’d be vaporized by a BLORP GUN.

NOM NOM NOM.

There’s Ben again. Still awake. Bringing me back to Earth.

NOM NOM NOM.*snort* NOM NOM -

… (hmm?) …

*bltttthptth*

Oh dear. I’m not sure what orifice that just came out of. I better get off my moon and check his. I hope the Predator is gone.