Trouble with Aliens

When I was a little girl I had an irrational fear of standing too close to my bed because I believed that the (imaginary) Red Indian who lived under my bed would reach out and grab me. This made it necessary to leap onto the bed from as far away as possible to be sure that I stayed safe. I watched far too many cowboy films when I was little! As far as I can remember my sleep was never disturbed by aliens - until this week! In fact The Clangers are the only aliens I recall from my childhood and certainly weren't scary.

On Wednesday evening I went to bed fairly late and just as I was getting

warm, comfortable and very sleepy Robbie bounded upstairs and launched himself onto the bed as if he was being chased by a whole posse of imaginary foes. He announced excitedly that he had an alien, he was clutching a Lego mini figure pack which he had carefully opened to reveal the pieces necessary to build an alien mini figure. He settled himself on the bed in a Buddha like pose and began to build his alien, while I snuggled under the duvet in search of sleep. Robbie shook me to inform me tat the alien's weapon was too short. My knowledge of alien weaponry is severely limited (I don't think the Clangers had weapons) and I have absolutely no desire to further my knowledge of such things, especially not at 2am! Apparently a purple light-sabre type thing was missing, and Robbie wasn't going to settle until he found it. It was not easy to sleep when Robbie put the light on and then knelt on the bed stark naked looking down to see if the missing part had fallen onto the carpet. It was even harder to sleep when he decided that he had to lift up the duvet and check all the bedding. By this time I was ready to kill him because I really needed to sleep. We agreed that he would let me sleep if I promised to look for the part in the morning.

True to my word I searched for the part the next day without success, so I ended up returning the figure to the shop because there was a piece missing. Imagine my embarrassment when the missing part turned up, it had been caught inside the packaging all the time. He is a very happy chap now that his alien's weapon has been restored to the correct proportions and even happier because his latest mini figure is a very cool looking rapper.