Today's #flashfiction Football Or Football?

 “Think before you speak.”

Raymond Teller* #quote

Everybody should get some sunshine from time to time, but getting moonshine is a bit more risky. Anyway onto the flash fiction!

Football Or Football?

        “Football.” The alien diplomat Xiliigu barely managed to say with his three tongues slamming together. Xiliggu itself is a poor approximation of his name into English phonetics. He took his two tentacles and put them in the shape of a football and pointed to them with his two arms which lay under his tentacles. His species stood very tall to accommodate for being able to have four limbs coming out of their torso and still being bipedal like humans. He then said without effort in his native tongue, “That's the name of the most popular sport on the planet.”

        His fellow diplomat, Vixyxx, responded “The one where they kick around the black and white ball?” Their language sounded a bit like a drunkard's mumbling amplified through a speaker.

        “No, you idiot!” Xiliigu yelled back, “Wrong football! It's the one where they wear battle armor.” His three eyes crossed, a common expression of ridicule in his species to others.

         “Well they kick during both of them.”

           Xiliigu paced on the hard metal floor of their spaceship as it hovered above Earth, hidden by their advanced cloaking technology. “If we want to initiate first contact we need to make sure that we have cultural element to share. Our mastery of their languages is shaky at best from their translator units and abductions. Mind probe tech isn't what it used to be since the regulations. We need to pick one.”

         Vixyxx then commented, “Y'know the armored one seems mostly popular just in the one with the 'English' language country we intend to contact with. Overall the black and white ball one seems to be played by more, so over time it might be better to use that to gain favor.”

         Xiliigu then clapped his hands together while throwing his tentacles in the air. “I have it!”

After a few months of further language practice, speech writing, and other preperations the two diplomats arrived on the planet wearing “football battle armor”. They also held a round football, in all its black and white checkered glory. The two diplomats felt very happy that they did not intimidate the humans since they made a cultural connection, but it took them quite awhile before they realized why every one had chuckled during their first meetings.