“Ohmie, honey. What’s that you’ve transplanted about in the garden?” Ohmie’s mother asked. “A sabertooth was headed for your little sister and as it approached the garden, it diverted to one of those plants. The tiger did the most amazing thing. Just when I realized that it would get to little Gooberhead before me, probably rip the poor dear to shreds, it stopped, looked at your plant and rolled all around it, licking the bottom leaves. It lay still long enough for me to kill it. We’ll be eating that monster for a week!”
 
Ohmie had been waving good-bye to his friend, just approaching the cave when his mother had told him of the vicious tiger incident.
 
“So, what is it that you planted, Ohmie? And who’s your friend? A little old for playing with, isn’t he?”
 
“Oh, it’s nepeta. I noticed that aphids are never on it and flies and mosquitos stay away from it, too. And, deer never eat it, either.” Ohmie was, by then, examining the sabertooth carcass, paying close attention to its olfactory receptors. “Meat’s gonna be stringy,” Ohmie said.
 
“So says my seven-year-old,” Ohmie’s mother proclaimed. “But I’ll chop it and boil it into a stew. It’ll be fine.”
 
Ohmie nodded, still studying the cat’s sinuses, using a sharpened flint to open then up. “His name’s Jimmy. He’s old, but in his head he’s only, like, eight.”
 
“Oh, okay, then. Isn’t he the one who sings those weird songs? Milkville, or Coconutville, or something?”
 
“Yeah, he’s a little weird, but he’s cool. He’s like that full-grown man who’s an elf who’s Santa Claus’s adopted son, or something? In that story you and dad told us kids.”
 
“Anyway, we climbed up Mount Rushington and studied UAPs.”
 
“What’s a UAP?” his mother asked as she finished scraping her chopped sabertooth tiger meat into a clay pot for boiling.
 
“It’s what we used to call Unidentified Flying Objects.” Noting his mother’s squinched eyes and brows, Ohmie quickly continued. “We, me an’ Jimmy, call ‘em Unidentified Aerial Phenomena now. UAPs. That’s because all the crazy people used to blame UFOs for whenever they were gone too long, like days. Remember people who said they were abducted?”
 
“Yes, I do. And some girls claimed that was how they got preggers.” Ohmie’s mother winced at her use of the word, wondering if Ohmie knew what it meant and how she would answer him if he asked. Fortunately, Ohmie was busy, the cat’s face all peeled of its skull as Ohmie cracked it open to pick through its brain.
 
“Run and get me some vegetables, would you please, Ohmie? Especially some onions and beans and rutabagas. And garlic, don’t forget garlic,” she called to Ohmie’s back. “AND WARSH YOUR HANDS FIRST!” she yelled.
 
The next day Ohmie and his friend Jimmy Buffett brewed a catnip concoction, a slug each morning to ward off all biting insects.
 
“It burns my throat,” Ohmie managed to squeak out, his face cherry red and his eyeballs seeming to roll around in opposing directions.
 
“Hmmm,” Jimmy said. “Maybe we can go pharma with it. “Dry it into pill form.”
 
“You know, like a pill bug. Hollow him out, fill it with powdered nepeta.”
 
“We could make it into an oil, so mothers could slabber it on their babies,” Ohmie offered.
 
“Make it into a spray,” Jimmy countered, the two beginning a banter.
 
“Men could spray their yards,” Ohmie snapped back.
 
“Girls could spray their hair. Keep all the crawling creatures off their scalp in the first place,” Jimmy retorted.
 
“We could put it in little bottles and sell it to women to keep fleas off them!”
 
Ohmie’s grin began to fade.
 
Jimmie drew serious as he watched Ohmie. “What about overdosing?”
 
Ohmie asked. “How much is too much, and what would happen?”
 
“Right up my ol’ forté, my little amigo. Watch this!” Jimmy chugged the remainder of the vial. At first nothing happened, except his gaining a fuchsia tone. Presently Jimmy pasted one side of his face to the ground, raised his hips and proceeded to corkscrew himself into the earth, his feet digging in a circle.
 
Ohmie began repackaging the brewed version into single dose containers. After running out of the small size, Ohmie gathered all the prepared doses, moving them into a small nearby cave where he and Jimmy stored their supplies. Eventually, Jimmy wound down and he and Ohmie quit for the day, leaving the still to cool down even as more brew hatched out of the spout and into a large pot.
 
Very early the next morning, concerned about their brew, they trekked out of Ohmie’s holler to their hilltop work area not too far from Mount Rushington. Arriving before first light, they witnessed creatures from a nearby UAP share from the pot of nepeta brew. They one and all flipped front and back flips, one after another, occasionally stopping to spin,. Then they did what constituted cheeks to the earth Jimmy Buffett spins. Presently they scrambled into their UAP, the door slamming behind them with a whoosh. The UAP veritably popped into the air, spinning itself directly toward the moon. To this day Ohmie maintained that he saw the tiniest poof on the moon’s surface just inside the Sea of Tranquility.
 
That was the only time Ohmie or Jimmy had seen E.T.s, and the last time they left their Nepetaville concoction unattended.