I hope you can find a place to fit in some space travel. And cheese. Actually, the two should go together. Not in the tried-and-true Moon-made-of-green-cheese sense, but in a New and Different way. Here, I’ll give an example…
After graduating from Anapolis, I was accepted as the eighth Mercury astronaut; the secret, covert, CIA conspiracy one. Bet you thought there were only seven Mercury astronauts, huh? The CIA hushed me up because I was selected to do work that was secretive, covert, and conspiratorial. But now that Deep Throat’s dead (or is she?), I can tell my story…
My test pilot training stood me in good stead, as I was prepared for my mission - a mission so dangerous that (despite my incredible courage and manliness) they wouldn’t even tell me what I was going to be doing. But I didn’t mind; I liked blindly following orders (hence my desire to join the military in the first place).
I was told to get in the centrifuge contraption, so they could whirl me around at redicuous speeds and see if my brain would fly right out my ears. I did (it didn’t).
I was told to undergo dozens, if not hundreds, of humiliating and invasive medical tests to establish my fitness for spaceflight. I did (and actually, they weren’t that bad).
I was told to refrain from any contact with my friends or loved ones in the outside world, and to spend fifteen hours a day paying homage to The Everlasting One. I did (but then I went back to NASA, because the cult stopped being a lot of fun, when they wanted to make us drink Kool-Aid - yuck!).
ANYHOW, after all this rigorous preparation, the day of the launch came around. Four hours before takeoff, I was called into a Secret Office, where I was briefed on my mission by CIA operatives with names like “Mr. X,” “Mr. and/or Ms. XXY,” and “Cher”. This would not be some candy-ass up-around-down-again flight like the othe boys had been doing. No sir. My mission was serious, complicated, and (though it pains me to admit it) sinister.
You may (or may not, depending on your age) recall, that the Space Race took place during the height of the Cold War. But perhaps you do not realize just how close that war came to becoming Hot. No, it had nothing to do with the Cuban Missile Crisis; in fact the hottest part wasn’t nukes at all. It was - I know you saw this coming - cheese.
Cheese, that cruel and insidious force; that harbinger of hulkery, that carrier of cholesterol, which has damaged - nay, destroyed - so many hearts, souls and arteries. Yes, cheese. During the Cold War, Cheese was the greatest single threat Communism ever faced from America. Rising Blob-like out of places so apparently innocent as the fair state of Wisconsin came the cheesy menace, which was to become my payload on that flight; and very nearly, a Payload of Horror.
Armed with (and terrified by) the information from my briefing, I was strapped into the capsule. Beneath me were thousands of gallons of rocket fuel, but this did not scare me one bit. What scared me were the tons of cheese. Mozzarella, Cheddar, Provalone, Münster, Camembert, Monterey Jack, Stilton, Brie, Swiss, Limburger - you name it, if it’s a kind of cheese, it was crammed into my cargo compartment (that sounds dirty, but isn’t). Sweat beading thickly on my forehead, I awaited the countdown.
It came and went, the engines fired, and I was launched, in a roar of hellfire and thunder. After that, everything happened in a blur. I remember my hand shaking as I opened the protection-screen to reveal the Cheese-Release lever. I did not want to be the one to make the first strike in what everyone expected to be the war that destroyed us all. But I had my orders. Entering a low orbit, I was to release the cheese (not the hounds), as my flightpath took me over Eurasia; hopefully shrouding the Soviet Union in a greasy, suffocating heap of cheese (granted, other countries would fall, too, if my trajectory was even the slightest bit off. But those were acceptable losses).
I crossed over the Soviet Union. Control radioed that it was time. I pulled the lever, but I was strapped in so tightly that I couldn’t see the resulting devastation beneath me.
“Cheesy Seven to Houston: Payload released, over,” I told the CapCom. I felt sick.
There was static, then silence.
“Houston to Cheesy Seven: Release payload. Repeat, release payload now. Do you read?”
I was confused. I told them I already had.
“We read no payload release. Pull the lever again.”
“Roger.” I pulled the lever again.
“Payload released, over.”
“Negative. No release.” There was a pause. “Try smacking it a couple times.”
I smacked the lever, pulled it again, wiggled it around. My cheese wouldn’t budge.
As I crossed the continent, and was once more over the sea, it became clear that the mission must be aborted. Somehow, the mechanism had failed, and though it would never earn me a smash hit movie, I was thankful. The Soviet Union remained un-cheesed, and the world would never know how close we came to war (or my role in this horrific plot).
Until now.
See what I mean about the cheese/spaceflight thing? It’s fun! And that was just a fer-instance.
Love,
Kn*ckers