The two students in the back of the lecture hall were paying little attention to the lecture.
“This is too early in the morning to listen to this crud,” one said.
“You know it. I almost didn’t come,” the other replied.
“You’d figure that…”
“Shhh, listen.”
“…wondered what a creature from an alien race would look like. Would it be like us, or would it be some sort of sapient turtle, or… “
“I thought this was supposed to be a ‘classical civilizations’ lecture,” the first student interjected.
“It was, shhh.”
“…or some form that we cannot even imagine?”
“There are many conflicting opinions on this. Most feel that for another planet to have intelligent life, ecological conditions of the planet would have to be identical with those of ours. They feel that similar or identical conditions have to produce similar or identical intelligent beings.”
“I disagree on both counts…”
“They’d have to be like us, wouldn’t they?” the first student asked the other.
“I don’t see how they couldn’t,” replied the second.
“Then let’s get out of here.”
“Okay,” agreed the second with a wave of a claw, and the two scuttled toward the exit and the great open seas.
I had two versions of this story stapled together — one was more vanilla and not really going anywhere. I must have gotten bored, and decided to rewrite it with a silly ending.