I had some Big Plans for the long weekend, but wouldn’t you know it? It rained like crazy the whole time. So my plans for swimming from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina to the lovely island of Bermuda (home of onions in long shorts) got themselves called off. I didn’t want to swim in the rain. I could get wet.
Not having my original plans work out, I fell back on Plan B: Sit around and try not to find any Home Improvement Projects that needed doing. I was quite successful with Plan B. I pulled out my old scrapbooks and that reminded me of stuff.
Way back after college, I revamped an old freighter with some of my college pals and we were going to splong out to the Reaches and see what we could see. Remember that? I mentioned it before. But I think it got eaten in the Winter of Our Missed Content. That was a bite in the ass, wasn’t it? (You Newbies might not remember the Winter because it was before your time, but it was a bite in the ass. A big bite at that.) Jannie, Borth vonght Krellian and I wound up flying a five position freighter out to the Reaches all by our little lonesomes. It’s choss, only 56 years after First Contact and already we Earth-types were flitting hither and yon.
You remember First Contact from History and Vids, right? The Pinjiops come a-wafting without so much as blipping radar, and hover over Paris (the one in France) for three days. Then they set down off in the French countryside (since they were in France anyway) and sit there for three more days. No one can get them to crack. They ain’t yakkin’ and they ain’t receiving visitors either. Just plonked and quiet. The Guns and Bomb Boys can’t get within two klicks of the ship without zonking down and stoning. Then the ship finally cracks and the Pinjis stroll out to meet us. The first Communication from Across the Stars, in all its majesty: “Hey! Yous guys gots anything to TRADE?” Oy. Bourbon, red squirrels (but not the grey ones), coconuts and jazz music in return for the cure for cancer and Kleef. Plus we joined the Galactic Community. That had to be the best part. It gave me something to do after college.
After we swapped out our freighter and Borth (who promptly fell asleep for three months) to the Pretty Boys looking for rocks on Daddy’s dime for their hopper, Jannie and I made our way to Felicity Bay. The OLD Felicity Bay, back before the Guard put their base up on Joy to “look for privateers” (hint: they looked down) and the Way dropped their Temple in Serendipity. Now it’s just another straight gamble hall, but then, oh Shemp! Have you ever played seven handed Karja for thirty six hours with nothing but Spicy Meatballs to keep you going? With real knives yet? Those were some wild times. Now every Sam you know nicked an ashtray outta Hibernia Station. They got SHRINER junkets now. But these were the Old Days. And I wind up a Barney. Me, a Barney in the biggest shimmy known to Sentient Kind. T’chuh!
But it wasn’t my fault! On my eyes! I was stowing the screamer mast from our new ship out on the pads and I hear the Barney’s whistle. I turn around to see who’s in the hot and WHANG! the hot bounces off my mast. It’s twelve feet of monocrys, so it wasn’t hurt, but when I turned back around to see if my victim could use a hand, he was already on the bounce. Again, WHANG! The Barneys show up and take the moof away and credit me with Policework. I turn around twice and I’m a big time Barney with Badge and Gun plus Twenty Big a week. All for pushing around town on my pegs keeping that which we don’t want to see where we don’t see it. Cush gig for me. Jannie winds up a Kleefistana at Historic Kaarguu’s. Back before it was “Historic” and there was an authentic Kaarguu about somewhere. She owned that place, at least nothing went on without her say. She ruled with a mean backhanded crysta-plex pitcher, the threat of a mil-spec nerve bell and a winning smile. Mostly it was the smile. Yeah, the smile.
Jannie’s a Matron out near Spell now.
Maybe I should heat up Bettie and go visiting. Too bad the long weekend’s already over.
-Rue.
Well, that made better reading than anything that might have really happened, if I do say so myself. OK, maybe not better than anything that might have happened, but it was better than what did happen. And it really did rain a lot too. I did do some stuff, but not all that much. All day Sunday I was the Jolly Humunculous though. (Would you go to a restaurant named "The Jolly Humunculous? Even if the had a good Hippopotamus Sandwich on the cheap?) Between stowing holiday decorations down in the crawl space and crawling up into the attic to run some electrical wire, I spend the whole morning in a half-sqat and bent over. It was murder on my thighs. The front of my thighs, right above the kneecap, whatever that muscle is called. Being half-sqatted as long as I was gave me leg owies. But that’s gone away now, so I’m fine.
Three days off and that’s what I got. That’s why I went with that first thing.
-Rue. (done now)
