“You may say I'm a

dreamer, but I'm not the only one.”

- John Lennon

“Why aren't we flying? Because getting there is half the fun.”

- Clark Griswold in

“National Lampoon's

Vacation”

The only thing that comes to mind when looking out the window is “brrr!”

I don't know who forgot to pay the heating bill, but throw me the check book and I'll send in the payment myself if I have to. But then again it's to be expected. This is January, after all.

So why is it that we all freak out so much when the thermostat finally decides to swan dive into the lower digits? Sure, if it was July and the hot girls were wearing parkas then I might be upset but a flurry here or there at this time of year is nothing new; in fact, it's not even news to me. January is supposed to be this cold. So what is news then? Well, if you haven't heard yet, UFOs have been sighted in a small town in Texas.

CNN had almost an hour of coverage dedicated to those who wanted to tell their tales of seeing lights in the sky. Where's Mulder and Scully when you need them?� You know what? I see lights in the sky all the time; they're called stars; and that really bright round one? That's the moon.

There are of course two camps to this debate. Either you believe in aliens or you think we are alone in the cosmos. For me, I want to believe in UFOs, I want to think that in all of space there is more to life than just what is on our planet.

I just don't like the thought of E.T. traveling a few hundred light years through the cold vacuum of space just to hover over a field and then take off. In my mind, that means that this advanced civilization is no better than my family is.

You see, when I was younger, my father would decide we needed a vacation and load us kids in the van and off we'd go. Now these were endurance tests for my pop because while he was trying to show us the world we were too busy being demon spawns in the back seat.

And that's what makes me think that aliens and my family have some traits in common because I can just see some martian father, turning around in his seat and saying in a loud voice. “If you kids don't start behaving I'll turn this ship around and we can all go right back home!”

Now that, my friends, is something I had heard on every trip we ever took. My father, his face beat red, spit coming out of his mouth, trying to both steer and yell at the same time.

Maybe that's why the ship was only in the sky and never landed because the kids were acting up and the father couldn't take it anymore and finally decided to pull the plug on the family outing and head back to Planet X without even picking up any souvenirs.

I like my theory because, for me, that's not an idea that's so alien.

Auburn native Bradley Molloy's column appears here, each

Sunday, in The Citizen. He can be reached at lovonain@hotmail.com