One weird dude

During our ongoing trip to Germany, Laura and/or I have had the pleasure of conversations with a wide variety of people - a group of French Canadians, several Australians (we've found that backpacking Europe is very, very popular with Australian youths), a girl from Scotland, girls from Wisconsin and Philadelphia, many Germans, and a Belgian turned Dane (we had a very interesting discussion of the Danish cartoon controversy and his impressions from a recent trip to Israel).

The most unexpected conversation, however, is one Laura and I had with a bunkmate in our Munich hostel. He was an American originally from Memphis, TN and was reportedly visiting Munich to get trained to drive trucks in Europe. He went on, just moments removed from trading pleasantries, to tell us that he was from a military family stationed in TX ... and that is why the US military implanted a tracking chip in his body. The tracking chip (or "homing beacon") may have also had something to do with his past as a drug dealer ... or the fact that as a descendant of a slave and a southern plantation owner, he inherited a lot of money. He wasn't certain. Either way, the US military knew where he was at all times.

We shared the room with this guy for three nights and didn't lose any sleep over the fact that the US military could, at any moment, come crashing through the windows and retrieve their prized army brat/ex con/southern aristocrat. But what I will forever wish I had asked him, perhaps for the rest of my days, is this - do aliens still use anal probes or have they graduated to less invasive methods?