The abduction was very swift.
One minute he was brushing his teeth at the mirror, with his wife calling out not to be long as she needed the bathroom, the very next, he was laying, strapped to a table. There was movement around him, but he couldn’t see through what seemed to be some sort of gorse fabric, draped across his head.
After a great deal of throat-clearing the questions started. Questions that went on and on. For hours he lay there being bombarded with questions. So many questions. Some of the earlier questions about evolution and natural selection he was willing to have a stab at. He knew enough to know that this guy Darwin had come up with the idea that evolution is brought about through natural selection. He enjoyed learning about that at school. His inquisitors seemed relatively happy with the answers he gave. Finally, the head covering was removed to reveal the grotesque heads and shoulders of the three alien beings.
Unfortunately, his ability to keep his captors happy didn’t last. He simply couldn’t understand the questions being put to him. He really knew nothing of Newton’s laws of motion or Kepler’s laws of planetary motion. As for Archimedes’ buoyancy principle and Hubble’s law of cosmic expansion, well, they meant nothing at all to him. On and on the questions came, about the laws of thermodynamics, the universal law of gravitation and cosmic microwave background radiation. All this went on, until he simply couldn’t take it anymore.
In desperation, he shouted, “If you want to know that, you need to ask a scientist!”
One of the creatures came closer to the table and leaned over him, staring down.
“I’m not a scientist, I’m a roof-tiler.”
The strange head shook from side to side, slowly. It turned to the others.
“You know, a roof-tiler;” he went on, “I work on house roofs, putting tiles on.”
All three heads started shaking.
Back, staring into the mirror, he was standing motionless, holding his toothbrush. He jumped at the voice coming from the bedroom.
“Are you finished?”
With great effort, he called back, as calmly as he was able, “Yes, dear. All done.”
You don’t often find typographical errors in a telephone directory, but it can happen.