How to Ask for Help
A Common Sense Guide for Intergalactic Travelers
Don’t like reading? Allow me to read it to you 👈
Travelers of Time and Space.
Of Existence Walking through the Tremulous Star Garden and Night Seas.
Shooting cosmically in proud stewardship of the Ancient Repository.
Specks of defiant light.
Dream dusts alighting from the Cosmos Curtains.
Existing on the Plane of Unknowing.
Beings of the Being Of.
Thank you for booking your travel through us.
Hail Tuta!
To prepare for your journey, please absorb into your immense and globulous being the following references. These have been curated to assist in performing the most important and aggravating chores and tasks you will have to endure upon arriving at your destination of Earth [set your Nandleray to the 2nd setting - Precautionary], that prime sphere of marble eye territory in the Universal Nothing but super fun to visit if the Bastual Beacon Straws aren’t popping off in the nebulas near Taunzwakzi.
Hail Tuta’s Vision Adjusters!
By now you will have been issued an operator’s manual for your rental humanoid form.
Before you put it on, please review all contents and DO NOT proceed to Earth until you have completed the Basics course. This essential learning covers waving, walking, and winking; consuming consumables in a convincing manner; and determining which finger is for pointing at pastries in glass cases (very important for beignet procurement) and which is for pointing in a threatening manner (which is just fun if you’re looking for some Saucy Spice experiences while on your journey).
Please remember to keep blinking the thin skin that covers the seeing orbs in your rental. This will not only keep the humanoid eye moist for the duration of your stay, but it will avoid drawing unwanted attention to your mission and ensure you get your deposit back.
Should returning to your natural form at any point during your touristing or beignet procurement safari be necessary, simply press the eject button for your humanoid skin suit. Its location is detailed on the last screen of this intergalactic transmission.
Hail Tuta’s Eternal Flame Breath!
Traveler, the most important thing you must learn prior to departure is how to ask for help. Actual humans find this difficult. Just saying.
We have compiled this guide based on previous missions of observatory intent. It’s pretty accurate. We believe. We believe it is pretty accurate. There may be small errors. Whoops! Use your time on Earth to gather corrections and submit to the agency upon return using the form provided. Attach a beignet to speed up processing and gain a 10 Natrodrange Travel Credit for your next trip!
At this point you may be saying: “But why will we, superior globulous beings, require assistance? We who have commanded the space gee-gee creatures of the seventh quadrant, materialized in the great space clouds of Candualon 5 for drift games, and appeared in the crude drawings of the creatures of the Mandrafed Colonies as Gods. What possible touristing scenarios will we, carriers of the universal tong tone and general wow sense, be required to ask for anything resembling help?”
Traveler of Time and Space
Of Existence Walking through the Tremulous Star Garden and Night Seas.
Just wait. Just you wait and see.
You have no idea as to the unanticipated weirdness of this body you will soon inhabit. Most pressing? Waste evacuation is an all-too-frequent task. You will be required to know where to locate the waste evacuation facilities in a tense emergency—aka you will need to ask for help to locate it.
Remember: As an approved visitor to Earth, the ball, the glint visible, the pale blue, you signed the release for that body. While its fit was determined during your orb scan and is fully dialed, its function is, at best, fiddly.
Your instinct on Earth may be to say: “I have a load for dispatch at the back bay door.”
While very direct, this statement is declarative, not assistance based. Ignore instinct. Use the guide. Do not return your suit with dispatch errors. This will necessitate the non-return of your rental deposit and trigger the automatic cleaning fee.
Why are you resisting? Asking for help is easy and a fun part of the human experience!
Hail Tuta’s Acceptance Vibe!
Let us begin. The Common Sense Guide uses the Five Humanoid Distilled Senses—sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste—as an easily remembered method of scenario recall. Some Help scenarios are designed to accentuate the human experience so that you may tourist more effectively and get a general sense of what it is to be human. Others are literally for the waste dispatch thing, which is not a tourist task but a maintenance necessity.
NOTE: Your additional senses have been deactivated for this trip.
Good journey!
Hail Fradwin, daughter of Tuta and bringer of the Omnipresence Portal!
How to ask for help: SIGHT
SPELL IT OUT
Upon our many visits to Earth, we have observed an unusual prevalence of desert island stranding and abandonment. Should you find yourself stranded on a desert island as part of one of our most popular tourist activities and have already eaten your companion, you may wonder “Well who do I ask for help now?”
Answer: The skies.
On Earth, you will look up and spy many primitive flying apparatus, incapable of landing without a runway, but piloted by humans with the seeing orbs called eyeballs. This is sight.
Since you cannot use your voice to ask for help, you must literally spell it out on a beach using either coconuts (many) palm fronds (many) or rocks (many). Use these items to form the letters of the word HELP or SOS as large as you can make them. They must be large enough to be visible from great heights.
Crude? Yes.
Effective? Rarely.
Fun? Well, it soaks up the time.
This activity is also what’s known as a TV trope, often depicted on the human technologies of the moving pixel viewers and interpretive boxes. This is listed in the “Things to do on Earth" guidebook available for absorption on your flight to Earth.
Having gained the attention of these passersby and once aboard your rescue craft, your first question should be: “Where are the toilets?”
How to ask for help: TASTE
ASK A FLAVOR
There is a human saying: “It was a cry for help.”
This does not necessarily mean an actual cry using the human voice box to express your desire for assistance (see Sound It Out). Sometimes ACTIONS themselves are the cry for help.
If you are desiring to enter a live-in human relationship as one of your touristing activities, first, determine if the interest is genuine and mutual with the cookie experiment.
Make your desired human a fresh batch of cookies. Use salt instead of sugar in the recipe. Give them the bag of cookies. Watch their face as they eat a cookie. If they make a face, do not spit it out in your presence, and say “Mmm, yummy,” you have a potential mate.
The TASTE help trap is now set.
Cooking poorly is defined as a subtle cry for help. This is an observed behavior by many of our kind. After the cookie experiment is deemed successful, offer to cook at your intended romantic partner’s domicile. Give them a glass of wine and seat them at the kitchen island or nearby chair so that they may view your wooing ways. Food, as they say, is the language of love.
As they are watching, initiate weaponized incompetence protocol as found in the “Things you Must Try” section of the “Guide to Being Human” sub-materials issued in your flight manifest. Weaponized incompetence is your ally.
Put water on the stove to boil. Ignore it until it burns the pot dry and stinks up the joint. Offer a tasting spoon to your desired partner for the tomato sauce you have over-salted. This is considered a romantic gesture.
Finally, attempt to slice onions with a spoon. In a matter of seconds, the better functioning human will stand and hip check you out of the way, saying: “Here, let me help,” as they do so.
Their tone will either be pitying or frustrated. Both are desirable.
Congratulations. You are now a project! A human to be helped and nurtured to betterment!
As they take the spoon from your hand and maneuver you away from the cutting board, an opportunity is presented. Look them in their pitying face and say: “Where is the toilet?”
How to ask for help: SMELL
SNIFF IT OUT
Another cry for help opportunity occurs via the smells emitted by your human rental body. This is not exclusive to rental bodies—all bodies can stink.
When a human stops bathing, this is regarded as a cry for help.
Time is a requirement of this method—namely that it takes time for body odor to accumulate to such a level of pe-yew-i-ness that it is noticed by others and garners a ‘do you need help?’ response which will be, as you will have gathered, your in.
Fortunately, the stench may also pre-empt your next question. A kind human may discretely inquire: “Do you need the toilet?”
Say yes, even if you don’t.
So easy.
Note: One disadvantage. Body odor is somewhat offensive to the human nose and many actual humans may attempt to avoid being in the same room as you. This makes it difficult to ask where the toilet is.
How to ask for help: TOUCH
FEEL IT OUT
The human body both gives and receives. The skin is a communication board with very sensitive dials. If you find yourself in a touristing situation where you need to gain the attention of another who is perhaps facing away from you, updated guidelines suggest not touching said person without consent.
Even if you know this newly befriended human, do not touch without consent else the help you will be requesting will not be toileting-based, but lawyer-based.
This is where touching bells and buttons come in.
Most humans facing away from or not present in a touristing situation—aka a hotel reception desk or any customer service counter like at a car rental facility—can be summoned by touching a device such as a small silver bell that goes ding! or a red button that perhaps buzzes. At which point a human may emerge from a back room to stare at you through glass.
After you have touched the bell or button repeatedly and have made eye contact with your attendee, you are free to ask where the toilet is.
How to ask for help: SOUND
SOUND IT OUT
Your rental human body is equipped with a voice box. This voice box emits sounds and words—some funny, some inflammatory. We have found that the easiest way to ask for help is simply to ask for help. Using your voice box.
In the sound department, a cry for help is literally a cry for help. Make a crying sound using no words. This is sometimes called a wail. This can occur loudly in the presence of others or, ideally, behind closed doors and loud enough to be heard by passersby. Do not be alarmed if liquid emits from your seeing orbs. This is a feature, not a bug.
If you have already located the toilet via a previously discussed assistance request method, toilet stalls are a popular crying location to get attention.
If you have performed the action correctly, someone will ask through the door if you are OK, at which point you will have successfully executed this technique. There is your opening. Ask directly for help.
If you have already located the toilet because you are in the toilet stall, we suggest using this opportunity to ask for help in finding the closest beignet purveyor.
In the ‘use your words’ department, which also utilizes your human voice box but requires total download of the language of the region, the application of the Sound it Out technique is simple.
Stand at the pastry counter. The person behind the counter will ask “May I help you?”
This is your in.
“Yes, you may help me! I will take two dozen beignets, please!” When they hand you the box, hit them with the follow up: “Oh, and where is your toilet?”
It is the opinion of this Travel Agency’s Tourist Protection Division that the Sound it Out technique is the most effective method by which a human can get help. We recommend this method for most situations and find it particularly effective in tasks requiring physical dexterity, aka moving a couch, opening jars, changing car tires, etc.
And of course, obtaining beignets.
And finding the closest human waste evacuation location.
These two requests are not typically linked but play it by ear.
Sound.
Simply ask, Traveler. Use your voice. Use your words.
Hail Tuta!
Go behind the scenes and see inspirations for this post👇
This week’s amends…
GOOD ADVICE FOR SOMEONE LIKE ME
behind the pain
someone is rejoicing
behind the torture
there is love
who's going to buy
this bullshit
if you don't become the ocean
you'll be seasick
every day
-by Leonard Cohen
On Rotation: “Katmandou 8” by Jean-Claude Vannier
A short documentary on a volunteer who paints telephone boxes in London to bring them back to life. I don’t know why, but I found watching this to be quite soothing. I’m glad British Telecom gave him permission to do it.
Via StoryThings
Sentences that GO HARD. Endorsed.
Shameless Podcast Plug
Listen to audio versions of early issues of The Stream on my podcast, Field of Streams, available on 👉 all major podcasting platforms 👈
Here’s Apple