Authorities in Colorado believe the Heene family, with dreams of starring in a reality television show, perpetrated a hoax by sending a flying saucer-shaped balloon into the sky last week and reporting their 6-year-old was inside.

Ironically, my own family just went through a similar experience. Here's the transcript of our backyard discussion, which we're trying to sell to Gawker.com:

ME: OK, does everyone understand the plan? We send this thingamajig into the sky, tell everyone little Johnny's aboard, get on CNN, and then wait for the TV offers to pour in.

JOHNNY: But I don't want to go in the thingamajig. I don't wanna!

ME: That's the beauty of it -- you don't have to go in it. You just have to pretend. We're doing it for a show.

TEENAGE SON: This is lame. No one will believe this cardboard and foil is a flying saucer. It'll crash to the ground and break into a thousand pieces.

JOHNNY (crying): I really don't wanna go near the thingamajig! Get it away from me.

TEENAGE DAUGHTER: Tell me again why we're doing this?

ME: It might help us get a reality TV show.

TEENAGE SON: And why do we want to do that?

ME: Um ... well, it's the American way. Everyone's trying to get one these days. Don't you want to be famous? Where's your sense of pride and ambition?

TEENAGE DAUGHTER: Is Brad Pitt going to be on the show?

ME: No, he's probably trying to get his own show.

TEENAGE DAUGHTER: Jake Gyllenhaal?

TEENAGE SON: God, I hate this family.

WIFE: If this is such a bright idea, dear, maybe you should be the one to climb into the flying saucer and let it take you wherever the wind blows, as far away as possible.

ME: Thank you for the support. You know, lots of genius inventors get mocked like this. There's a new Billy Bob Thornton movie about one of them nearly every week. You'll all be sorry if the movie gets made, and you're not in it.

JOHNNY: Oooo, I wanna be in the movie.

TEENAGE SON: But the kids at school already think we're all weirdo nerds. If normal air traffic has to shut down and we go to jail because someone figures out this was a hoax, I'll never get a girl to go out with me.

JOHNNY: I don't wanna go to jail!

ME: Don't worry, Johnny -- you're too young to be a likely target of prosecution. At worst, you'll be an unindicted co-conspirator.

WIFE: Don't you realize how many other people can be hurt or inconvenienced by your stupid schemes? Why can't you just golf and surf porn on the Internet, like a normal husband?

ME: I bet Galileo never had to hear that from his wife.

WIFE: Galileo didn't have a wife. He had a mistress.

ME: Lucky bugger.

TEENAGE DAUGHTER: If this junk somehow gets into the air and we get people to assume Johnny's on board, won't they just think we're the stupidest, most irresponsible family on the face of the Earth? Who would want to watch a TV show about such a family?

ME: The same people watch "Jon & Kate Plus 8." Some desperate network might pay us millions to depict a family of brave, extra-terrestrial hunters going where no man has gone before.

TEENAGE SON: You mean, a family of dorks that no man wants to be part of.

ME: Young man, until you are 18, you will participate in and enjoy this family's dorky activities, whether you like it or not!

WIFE: Look, let's just sit down to a family meal and play a game of Uno for once. Let's try to have one normal evening while we're all still together, before the police or the child welfare case workers or the psychiatric hospital intake specialists try to break us all up.

TEENAGE DAUGHTER: Uno? Gag me. I'd rather die in the thingamajig.

ME: That's the spirit! Now somebody man the duct tape while I use the air pump and we get this sucker looking like the USS Jiffy Pop, ready for space exploration. To infinity, or TLC!

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