It was a lot of waste.

Morgan was uncomfortable. It felt unnatural. All these years of recycling and trying to reduce waste. Now he was piling it outside.

“There.” Grinning in delight, ogling their pile of junk, Joyce backed away from it. “That’s a pretty good pile of junk and garbage.”

His wife peered up into the sky. “When are they supposed to come?”

“Any time.” Exasperation frosted Morgan’s tone. This had been explained numerous times. “They know it’s here. They’ll come and get it.”

Joyce answered, “Why can’t they tell us when?”

That, too, had been gutted as a topic. “I don’t know.”

He and Joyce studied their pile. Old printers and laptops. Unused televisions. Rugs. Boxes of junk. Old paint. Bags of shredded personal papers. Joyce insisted they be shredded. She didn’t trust the aliens. Like, what did she think was going to happen? These extra terrestrials from another solar system had come to Earth to steal their personal information?

It was good that they’d come. First, they cleaned all the oceans, and then junkyards. They paid well for everything.

“This is a great place,” a leader, Galic, said in a televised press conference.

Galic was a gorgeous black woman. Every female alien he’d seen was eye-watering stunning. He’d not seen any males among the ET, formally known as Porqzens. R-Q-Z was pronounced as a hacking sound.

Galic said, “We love your junk. We’ll take all of it that you can give us.” They were also eager to tear down houses, buildings, and bridges not in use. They wanted it all. “We’ll you if you want. Gold, dollars, diamonds, crypto. Just name it.”

Not everyone liked it. “Why are they doing this? What do they want it?” Mostly conservatives were asking these questions because Galic told them, “We’ll reprocess it to create materials and energy. We’re already so efficient that we have no waste.”

Humans weren’t appeased. They had reasons behind their doubts. “How do we know they’re real?” GOP Presidential candidate asked. “What if they’re taking all these resources to build machines to take us over? What about the recycling and garbage disposal companies? They’ll all go out of business. That’ll put unemployment up.”

Others speculated, “This is a liberal trick. There are no aliens. They’re using these materials to secretly build death rays and disintegration guns. They’re gonna use the disintegration guns to take away all our guns.”

Yes, it was a pickle.

Flat-earthers were freaked. “The Porqzens are Underworlders. They’ve lived on the other side of the planet, the bottom. They’re coming to take us over.”

Morgan didn’t care. All he had to do was put his junk at his curb for pickup? Lot easier than loading it up, hauling it to the various places, and unloading it. And they were paying him, instead of him paying them? Groovy.

A Porqzen popped into the space in front of Morgan and Joyce. Gorgeous, of course. Tight dark red outfit. Looked like leather. Blonde. Smile like a billion watts.

“Hi, Morgan and Joyce. I’m Zugar. We’re taking your waste now.” She handed them dark goggles. “Most people want to see it happen, so we provide these goggles. Please cover your eyes so the light doesn’t hurt them.”

Morgan and Joyce did. Through the lens, Morgan witnessed a dull light cover his pile. Looked purplish under the lens. Stayed there for about five seconds.

“That’s it,” Zugar said. “All gone. You can take your goggles off. Those are yours to keep for future pickups.” She whipped out a slim wallet and counted paper money out. “One thousand dollars, as agreed. It’s the minimum, I’m afraid.” She sounded like she meant it.

Joyce took the money. She and Morgan stared at it.

Zugar said, “It is real U.S. currency.” She laughed. “We sold a bucket of leftover lithium to the U.S. government.” She handed Morgan a card. “Just call us when you’re ready for your next pickup. Any questions?”

The humans shook their heads.

“Then I’ll take my leave. You all have a great day.” With a small bow and a bright smile, Zugar disappeared.

“Well, that was easy,” Joyce said. “She looked like Farrah Fawcett, don’t you think?”

Morgan nodded. “Do you think we’ll ever go to their planet?”