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this was your baby, and now i got 'em send me a birthday card or the little fucker gets it.....................

The note above followed the picture in an email from my brother Shane. When we we're kids, he really loved the movie ET. I guess things have changed.
He used to wear a necklace with ET's head on it. In his defense, he was probably 8 or 9. But we grew up seeing ET in the theater and we were young enough to think it was a pretty cool movie. It came out when movies were an Event, and stayed in the theaters for months.

So, back to the hanging of ET.

A few summers ago, Connie and I were up in Lake Leelanau visiting my mom for the weekend. C. wanted to go see some shops, and we came upon a thrift store, that I swear was a storage bin for old shit from Sanford and Son.

And there on a table piled with misc. crap sat ET.
I bought him for Shane for his birthday as a joke.

Fast forward a few weeks. Shane called to invite me out on the lake with him and Jeff for the day. Boating is always preferable to sweating, so I took him up on the offer. I packed up ET and brought him along. When I got to Jeff's house, I pulled ET out of my bag and handed him to Shane.

Since S. is no longer 8, but closer to 35, he looked at me, and said,"

"What the hell is this?"

Me: "It's ET."

"I can see that, but why did you buy me a doll?"

Me: "It's ET."

Shane was not impressed, and I was sick of driving around with him in my car.
His head had already fallen off on me, and I'd performed emergency surgery in the car.

But even ailens need a little sun, so I brought him on the boat.

And then forgot him. I'd planned to take him and find him a good home. I felt it was my duty after I'd paid a whole quarter.

A few days later, the ransom letter arrived in my Inbox.

Next year, Shane got a card.