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Scooter’s medi-pen on the ottoman at the alien’s feet, hoping the little fox-like thing wasn’t allergic to dog hair. The ottoman used to be cloth covered, but now the little footstool had more dog hair on it than Ol’ Bucky did. The ottoman was normally the dog’s personal domain. Ol’ Bucky had outgrown it at seven months. Now the dog just draped himself over the ottoman, settling down on his chest and stomach with all four feet hanging down.
    The ottoman was a good place for Ol’ Bucky since once he was comfortably splayed out, Larry could spin the ottoman around. That way, when Ol’ Bucky started in on his nightly methane generation, his gas release port was pointed away from Larry’s spot in his favorite recliner. Scooter didn’t seem to be generating methane, so Larry let him lie.
    Larry had politely showed Scooter around and answered lots of questions. Yet he had a few questions of his own.
    Who or what was the Tetra?
    Why did the Tetra pass over Earth?
    Why were Scooter and Betty here if they had decided Earth wasn’t worth even a roadside rest area?
    Could he see the inside of their spaceships?
    What kind of drives did they have?
    How had they beaten the speed of light?
    Had they beaten the speed of light?
    When could they get to the probing?
    And was Betty going to be there when they started probing?
    Questions were a little like athlete’s foot. One little itch led to another and pretty soon you’re into full-on trench foot. Larry was knee deep in questions.
    Larry leaned over and gave Scooter a gentle shake to wake him. Either the alien was fast asleep, passed out on his inhalant, or completely overdosed on the drug. If it was a human, Larry would’ve known whether to let it alone or dial 911. He knew enough to let sleeping dogs lie, especially Ol’ Bucky, who had a tendency to bite when startled awake. Larry was at a loss to know what to do about snoring aliens in his living room.
    If the little fox-like alien was going to sleep the day away, Larry needed another beer. Racine’s Bar and Girls was reasonably close, although the girls on the shift were homely enough to cause a blind man to poke his eyes out. Not that Larry visited Racine’s all that often, but he visited often enough to know that the middle of the day, middle of the week would mean that Merrie and Terrie, the Huckleberry twins, would be manning the pole and the stage.
    Larry knew the rule of thumb about area strip clubs: the farther away from the Wichita airport, the less attractive the dancers were. Racine’s Bar and Girls was as far from Wichita as you could get without hitching a ride with Scooter and Betty. Larry told himself he was just going for the beer, not the ogling.
    Thankfully, the drive to Racine’s was short. Larry’s previous two beers weren’t on his head as much as they were working hard on his bladder. The work was exactly like the road crew fixing the potholes out on Route 47, the potholes always got filled in quickly, but there was always another hole nearby. Larry’s bladder filled quickly, but there was always another beer nearby. Beers always seemed closer than bathrooms, not that his cows minded when he relieved himself in their field. The tractor never seemed to mind it either, except when Larry used one of his big back tires as a target.
    Larry almost changed his mind when he saw the Rickenhauser Plumbing truck in Racine’s parking lot. Not that he had a problem with the truck. The big double cab truck was nice enough as such trucks go, never really making fun of Larry’s beat up fifteen-year-old farm truck.
    The Rickenhauser brothers were a different matter all together. They normally behaved themselves when their sisters Mindy and Mandy were on weekend night dancing duty, but the sisters never danced midweek as they both had good paying post office dayshift jobs.
    He was sure Jeff and Doug, the brothers, weren’t officially at Racine’s. He would bet three-to-one odds that they were actually