WAITSFIELD, VT—Feeling like a failure upon realizing that he had never even been to space, local 38-year-old Mike Arroyo told reporters Monday that he assumed he would have settled down on a distant monster-filled planet by now. “I dunno, I just figured at this point in my life I’d be fighting off grotesque, otherworldly beings as I protected my self-sustaining homestead on a bizarre alien landscape,” said Arroyo, explaining that he took it as a given that by this age he would have saved up enough from his job as an intergalactic monster-slaying space cadet to put a down payment on a modest biosphere. “Honestly, it’s kind of depressing to think that I might die on the same planet I was born. I just want what everyone else wants—a white picket laser barrier, a yard where my tentacled pet can play, and a buxom, egg-laying reproductive entity who I can have human-alien hybrid spawn with. I’m almost 40, is it too much to ask that I have a plasma sword forged by ancient alien craftsmen whose culture has been lost to deep time?” At press time, Arroyo scanned job listing websites to see if any interstellar alliances were hiring.