As he sipped a pint of Bettwanzen Half Stout he silently watched a wide panoply of human exemplars socialising — uni students, professors, trads, bohemians, and the lot.
What next caught his eye was quite the odd specimen: Waddling into the pub was an epicene, corpulent mass clad in ill-fitting dungarees sporting a buzz cut and grimace.
“To each, their own,” Swobble reminded himself of the earthers’ popular saying.
But what surprised the alien observer was another specimen that entered mere seconds later: a similar phenotype dressed identically to the first. Both humans had climbed the staircase to the performance space upstairs, so apparently some shindig was about to commence.
Even more astounding was a third, and then a fourth human entering with the same garb and physical attributes.
And then a sixth, and a seventh. All displayed variations on a theme: Dirty denim overalls, unflattering coiffures, and scowls at anyone who glanced their way.
“The bibbed trousers suggest this may be a convention of ranchers or other agricultural professionals, but I see no calloused hands nor epidermal bronzing from outdoor labour,” Snobble mused.
“The earthling Jared Gutts has remarked on the captivation many humans have for the beauty of what they call ‘sideboob.’ But I see nothing but languid adiposis resembling the pendulous pannus of the gordotherium, a foul beast native to Xarnaq IV.”
Then came the epiphany.
“On Xarnaq IV, we don’t have navels but we are familiar with the Earth practice of navel-gazing. On Xarnaq IV, the neurotic and unproductive castes obsess over their body parts as oracle as well as defensive proxy for their supposed lack of agency in a world that doesn’t cater to their every whim and need. We call it ‘cloacamancy’ — I wonder if this is the same thing?”
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