What you are about to read may seem shocking or even frightening, but forewarned is forearmed, as they say, and so I must tell you: the aliens have landed. And these are no ordinary aliens. They are shape shifters, and they creep among us now—today—undetected until they try to communicate.

While a haze of ambiguity surrounds this strange species, they are similar to the Ood, an extraterrestrial race encountered by The Doctor on his travels through time and space.

The Ood live only to please. This new species yearns to be all things to all people. Their name? The Ooze. In Doctor Who the Ood are kept as servants, performing tasks for future generations of the universe. In real life here on Earth, the Ooze have free reign and have seeped into every facet of life—politics, advertising, the office, chat rooms, websites—everywhere, in fact, that people come together.

I first suspected an invasion by the Ooze when I read this insightful weather prediction released this week by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration: Because of a lack of influential factors such as El Niño and La Niña, this winter will be warm or it will be cold; there will be rain or there will not be rain; it will snow or it will not snow.

Not long after reading that, my worst fears of wholesale conquest by the Ooze were confirmed when I received this communiqué from their leader:

“Hello I carefully read your profile, but I didn’t see a secret recipe to win your heart, so I will have to think of something on my own.”

Classic Ooze! I was able to resist the simultaneous optimistic/ominous tone of this missive, however, because I don’t have a secret recipe, but if I did I’m pretty sure the ingredients wouldn’t include sap.

Besides, here’s the profile from my language learning site that this Oozian so “carefully” perused: “I want to learn German because I am of German heritage and I would like to travel to Germany.” Yeowza! That really gets the blood boiling doesn’t it?

He continues:                                                                                                            “I hardly come online here because of my work. My friends say I am tall, clever, funny and interesting. Write me back and find out yourself.”

Oh, those Ooze—so insecure about their height. You’d think they were from Hobbiton. Anyway, like my kids say, “No thank you” to writing back.

But how exactly do I know this guy is the leader of the Ooze? Check out his profile:

“I am a person who is positive about every aspect of life. There are many things I like to do, to see, and to experience. I like to read, I like to write; I like to think, I like to dream; I like to talk, I like to listen. I like to see the sunrise in the morning, I like to see the moonlight at night; I like to feel the music flowing on my face, I like to smell the wind coming from the ocean. I like to look at the clouds in the sky with a blank mind, I like to do thought experiment when I cannot sleep in the middle of the night. I like flowers in spring, rain in summer, leaves in autumn, and snow in winter. I like to sleep early, I like to get up late; I like to be alone, I like to be surrounded by people.”

…I like to look up. I like to look down.

…I like to walk forward. I like to walk backward.

…I like to like you. I like to like the hundred other girls I sent this to.

So beware! The Ooze are here. The Ooze are there. Unfortunately, the Ooze are everywhere.